Chapter IV

Chapter 4

Formation and Development of the Pedagogical Strategy of Acting in the National School of Drama

4.1.1 Structural Background

The two previous chapters on SS and BS uphold the most commonly shared concept of today's

actor preparation that there is body-mind dynamics of knowledge and experience to be mastered

in the field of acting, prior to constructing a professional identity. The definable knowledge and

experience were epistemologically encapsulated into the Systems after much time was spent on

the perfection of 'grammaticalization' enabling the student of acting or a young actor to recognize

a more comprehensive idea of the acting discipline, a process of individual development through

group activity, and the instillation of a professional attitude. In order to achieve its effectiveness

in a pedagogical manner, the composite whole factors must have leamt to relate to the 'changing'

society in which the student draws on his own living experiences reflecting his own contemporary

consciousness. Taken somewhat for granted from school to school, the reconstructive knowledge

and experience have been transmitted by a curricular model of actor training rooted in the various

level of philosophical enquiry, psychophysical investigation, and sociological awareness, which

privilege academic credibility over generations.

Actor preparation is, according to Stanislavsky and Bharata, an indispensable stage for actors,

a positive solution to [re]find the principle and technique of acting, implicit in real space and time,

and the complexity of human body within a continuum. The two great visionary masters allow the

student to look at it as a study of human behaviour and as a tool for expanding his knowledge of

what expression is and for experiencing the communication skill. This idea of a leaning process

has been, in reality, formulated into the first cardinal Principle of BS in the third chapter of this

study (cited hereafter the BS Principle I or 3.2.1 ): The actor has to know the process involved in

the direct experience o(obsenation so as to define the origin o(people ~·behaviour and to create

challenge o( innovation and improvisation; and also the second cardinal Principle of SS at the

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second chapter (hereafter the SS Principle II or 2.2.2): Everv action on stage has a reason and is

determined by the given circumstances surrounding both the character and the production.

The actor is essentially not just a training artist but a constituent of the society who re-searches

a way to respond or react to the current. It is no doubt worth exploring whether the art of acting

possesses the philosophical, yet physical key to an understanding of a contemporary life: "The

precise references to life-experience and knowledge - different types of men and women, different

circumstances such as crossing a stream or encountering obstacles, different seats, or different

situations -are not intended to limit what is done but to 'promote inference' so that an actor will

reply, finally, on his or her own comprehension and experience" (Brown 2001 :45). It seems true

that all methodologies and "texts [of acting] are invariably products of a specific historical and

socio-cultural context" (Maharishi 2005:7). Any paradigm of acting is possibly understood in the

ideological, socio-political and cultural frames where theatre takes place. Much of discourse and

practices concerning actor preparation therefore comes back to one essential question, i.e., how

the society is defining the necessity of theatre arts. Just as the art of acting lurks in the periphery

between daily-behaviour and artistic re-creation, which closely leads to the regeneration of theory

and practice, actor preparation is an investigatory, exploratory, experimental approach and thereby

must be placed as pedagogical pursuit.

While a rich and expansive scholarship in theatre arts history existed in the post-independent

academic circle of India, it is to be noted that an evolving history of the idea on actor preparation

has not attracted either their theatre practitioners or scholars, which might embrace the significant

canonical views of, to name a few of the times, Plato's Ion (390 BC), Aristotle's Poetics and

Rhetoric (both 335 - 322 BC), Bharata 's Natyasastra (200 BC - 200 AD), Quintilian 's lnstitutio

Oratoria (90 AD), Augustine's Civitate Dei (392), Zeami's Kadensho (1400-1418), Barbieri's La

Supplica (1634), Bulwer's The Art ol Manual! Rhetorique (1644), Coquelin's L "Art et le

Comedien (1880), Diderot's Le Paradoxe sur le comedien (1830), Delsarte's Delsarte System ol

Oratory ( 1893), Darwin's The Expression ol the Emotion in Man and Animals ( 1899), Craig ·s The

Actor and Uber-Marionette (1920), Meyerhold's Tvorcheskii tratr i teatral 'nyi konstrukivism

(1922), Stanislavsky's Rabota Aktera Nad Soboi (1938), Brecht's Schriften zum Theater (1957),

Artaud's Le theatre et son double (1964), and Grotowski 's Towards a Poor Theatre (1965). Rather,

for many decades, utility of the logical, scientific methods extracted from these relevant theories

exhibited a tendency to be ignored, as also the existence of a regular school to train the actor was

considered impractical. Acting was not something to be studied in the institution but it was just a

skill one acquired by working in a theatre stock company.

The art of acting has been sometimes devalued by an attempt to distort the truth with a logic,

which can be hardly understood; that anyone is able to act without any educational prerequisite

proceeding; or that the best way of actor preparation is to accumulate the rehearsal experience of

the production. Vijaya Mehta points out the ultimate reason to raise this problematic cognition of

teaching acting, in her paper of "The Actor Today- Random Thoughts", prepared for the Sangeet

Natak Akademi's International Seminar, 'Theatre in the World Today: Individual and Collective'

(1oth -12111 Oct., 2003, New Delhi).

The lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that any layperson can consider

himself a potential actor. We all dream, we all imagine, and in these we see ourselves as the

central character. We role-play throughout life. If a doorbell rings our demeanour and our

body language transform intuitively depending on who is at the door - a postman. an

important visitor or an unwanted guest. Many feel that re-creating such behaviour patterns on

stage would be simple enough. Furthermore. everyone has the capacity to memorize a script

and recite it. And, since childhood, they know how to express anger, happiness. frustration. A

layperson therefore sincerely believes that 'Acting' is a very easy and achievable goal. ... To

be an actor it is believed that you only need a presentable face and your wish to act. ( 1-2)

To make matters worse, such an easy-going belief often induces students of acting to arrive at a

critical mistake of rejecting or devaluating a methodological approach to actor preparation even

before encountering it. One of the 2004 graduate from NSD with specialization in Acting, Imtiaz

Ahmed has a few words to say in an interview to the present writer:

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Acting is, to me, an improvisation of the moment. Everything I need to act is actually

depending on my inspiration. Nothing else [I need more]. If you ask me to remember acting

techniques or methods I have learnt in NSD, I have no answer at all [because) they just left

many, many confusions for me and it was just terrible .... Yes, I have tried seriously to read

Stanislavsky's books and understand his method by myself. I heard of its importance many

times since I joined an amateur theatre group before NSD but, to me, his books were too

heavy and boring to read the details. I tried to turn over four or five or ten pages and I felt

sleepy .... I have never learnt [that) the Natyasastra is an acting manual. Actually, I had no

interest in reading this old [fashioned] book, so I didn't complete even a single chapter. ...

[Nonetheless] there is no difficulty for me to act. I still wonder if the actor needs to learn the

method of acting. (3'd Jan., 2005)

Stanislavsky and Bharata are clearly sympathetic to the view that the actor must have not only

a creative, active inner state but also a definite means to stimulate it for practical application. All

actors may have experienced the moment when no inspiration bursts upon him and no emotion

comes up easily. The inspiration is, in reality, out of a conscious control. Both masters concluded

that the only means the actors can try to influence, to some degree, his inner state 'regularly' is

the fundamental technique of acting: SS Principle I (2.2.1) - To access the subconscious or the

Creative State o(Mind. it is necessary fOr the actor to be trained through a conscious. svstematic

technique; and BS Principle III (3.2.3) - The union o(all disciplines (techniques) o(the physical.

the psvchological, and the metaphvsical is certainly required {Or the actor who must incorporate

his entire being into everv moment of acting. In this context, it may be considered that one of the

major reasons why the tendency of avoiding the acting method have still remained attended is not

due to the 'system' of acting itself but insufficiency of a pedagogical model for applying it. Peter

Brook comments in his book, The Empty Space:

All too often actors- and it is not their fault, but that of the deadly schools with which the

world is littered- build their work on fag-ends of doctrine. The great system of Stanislavsky.

which for the first time approached the whole art of acting from the point of view of science

and knowledge, has as much harm as good to many young actors. who misread it in detail and

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only take away a good hatred of the shoddy. ( 117- I 18)

Theatre Arts was introduced into university or institutional set-up as an autonomous course

during the initial period of modem institutionalization in post-independent India. Its components

taught syllabus-wise were then only dramatic literature, such as Western Drama, Modem Indian

Drama, Classical Indian Drama, of which teaching method had been already formalized by some

departments of the language, mostly English literature department, well based on the textual study

of theatre history, dramatic theory, text analysis and criticism. Certain chronological and literary

variants have dominated the idea how to teach the theoretically-oriented subjects of Theatre Arts.

This methodology is, however, out of place for the occasion of practical classes because it has no

image shown of the way how the textual quality could be visually, aurally materialized on stage.

The teaching method for practical subjects, such as Acting Technique, Voice and Speech, Mime &

Movement, Improvisation and Interpretation, and the Production, has instead depended on the

physical-interactive procedural process and oral statement, which are essentially 'ephemeral'. It

was commonly felt that the real credibility of teaching was related to a teacher's own wide and

varied experiences in the profession. The emphasis on the field-experiences has been one of the

dominating influences in the general way of guiding the student of acting.

The self-defined 'seriousness' of vision highlighting the interrelationship between acting and

pedagogy may not have been achieved so far in modem Indian educational circle. In a sense of

this empirical characteristic of actor preparation, the teacher is not sincerely encouraged to come

up with a concrete paradigm of the educational methodology and its primary teaching material.

There is a potential danger to misconceive as that the entire business of teaching acting remains

highly fragmentary only as part of the individual's private realm. There is also a risk to be simply

led into a certain vogue of the training model without a thorough verification in advance. It may

be because the course of Theatre Arts was initially adopted from the literature department model

of textual study with lack of a definite consideration for the practical, perfonnative study. There

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has been also a dearth of human resource that accumulates perceptional experiences of acting in

depth, dealing with the theoretical achievement as a progression of interlocking creative concepts

and practical expression.

The balance between theoretical research and performative execution, or contextual analysis

and practical exercise has been always the issue in actor preparation. It is quiet difficult for young

students to take up an overall purport of the theory in perfection, and much more to embody the

theoretical base in the practice. Noticeably, to obtain knowledge of building up the foundation of

the character does not mean that they are ready for acting it on stage. The students are readily able

to learn how to 'analyze' the character on the ground of the textual study in class or may possibly

collect all that information from the manual of acting, in libraries, by themselves. Nevertheless,

they are still unable to translate their thoughts into space where perfonnance practically shapes up,

which indicates a gap of imagination versus materialization. Even if the students occasionally or

for a while attain a looked-for desired effect in acting, there may be again a particular danger in

misunderstanding a methodological approach, perhaps even distorting its process of creating the

character. Unless the training programme comes up with a concrete paradigm of the educational

method and material, it is all too easy for them to quote a 'fashionable' technique, before making

any independent and critical thinking. The necessity and value of a balanced teaching method of

theory and practice aim at the professional actor training thereby.

In the history of modem theatre, the major objective of actor preparation has been canonically

concerned for developing two areas: one is 'acting as craft'; and the other is 'acting as art'. The

fonner quality consists of a range of techniques in use of the actor's unique medium, body and

voice, very possibly attained through the expert-led guidance and practice. An intensive work on

individual manipulation and its application to work on group communication constitute relevant

training programmes. All the infrastructural Techniques of SS and BS (hereafter the SS Technique

or 2.3.0, and the BS Technique or 3.3.0) formulated in the previous chapters, are practicable to it.

Comparably, the latter quality of acting involves a certain aspect of imagination, self-motivation,

16:2

self-discipline, self-knowledge, self-determination and vision, intimately connecting to SS and BS

Principles. This quality is somewhat abstract, metaphoric and improvisational so that it can not be

entirely learnt through the formal schooling, but rather achieved by the student's own experience

and awareness during his lifetime. An intensive exercise of the improvisation, meditative practice,

or theatre-game, focusing on the inner state of 'immediate-sense-spring', contributes to enlarge

his capacity of the imagination being over the bare bones of information.

The quality of acting as craft opens up the possibility of accomplishing the quality of acting as

art, as also the process of enhancing the latter quality gives aesthetical strength to the fonner. It is

sure that these two qualities are nurtured and evolved interactively by a systematically composed

actor-training programme. The High-Powered Committee or the Haksar's Committee, established

in 1988 by the Government of India for investigating the function of the national academies and

NSD, defines the aim of actor preparation in an institutional set-up, in its Report:

7.21 This observation applies particularly to the acting course (which, in a school of drama, is

perhaps the most crucial) ....

7.13 There is the moulding of the actor's body, his mind and his sensibility. Various forms of

strenuous physical training like dance, movement, yoga and the martial arts provide the actor

with a body which is a flexible, sensitive instrument. But beyond that, when the actor is

confronted with the whole gamut of world history, and is called upon to serve as an interpreter

of the past and the present of a wide range of human societies, he must have a developed

mind which is comprehensive and sensitive enough to respond to these exacting demands, as

well as sufficient skill and imagination to communicate them convincingly to an audience.

7.14 An actor may have a graceful and finely-tuned body, an exquisitely modulated voice. a

fine highly developed mind; but the question of sensibility is an intangible matter of spirit, of

taste and refinement, which transcends technical skill. It is a matter of[ an] imaginative grasp.

of the capacity to respond to human experience with sympathetic understanding and poetic

insight: the ability to absorb ideas emanating from the greatest minds and incarnate them in

his performance (I 990: 122-123)

In this context, if it is generally agreed that the art of acting can be taught as a subject by the

help of making institutional devices, and that the actor of ability emerges out of the modem

16:3

educational system, it must be also accepted that there should be an 'objective' methodology and

primary textual source reflecting from a teaching philosophy, by which both theoretical base and

practical exercise can be conveyed in the majority of case. Noticeably, this study is close to

suggest that any practice of acting has to be approached logically and systematically, as is usually

the occasion with application of the theory, and that any theory of acting must be 'practicalized'

for the actual use in the class.

4.2.1 Initial Frame of Institutionalization

It has been only the last fifty years that theory and practice of the actor training came to be

incorporated into 'standardized' education despite the two-hundred-year history of modern Indian

theatre. There was little serious debate before about the need and function of training programmes

on the level of, at least, a modem schooling system. The early pedagogy of acting was positioned

once into "intermediary phases, where apprenticeships to loosely formed urban theatre 'groups'

become a way of learning, followed by the third phases, that of the institutionalized theatre, by

which I mean the theatre taught and learned in institutions that see themselves as part of the

educational systems of the modern world - universities, schools and other academies - and which

are conceptually different from the other learning processes, the guru-shishya traditions and

apprenticeships, that preceded them" (Kapur 2004:93). The emergence of the professional actor­

training school was nothing but a version of India's entry into modernity, in a situation of setting

values on the institutional mechanism anticipated to facilitate the artistic endeavour of the highest

quality. A trend of cultural nationalism in the early post-colonial period generated its expectation

to link the best in the past with the best of what contemporary theatre must provide. NSD is the

very considered formulation.

In 1953, the governmental funds and materials for the performing arts were sanctioned with the

establishment of the Sangeet Natak Akademi (National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama) in

a momentum of recovering or reconstructing a national identity, as discussed in the first chapter

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of this study (cited hereafter as the figure of a section, 1.2.2). The executive board of the Akademi

passed in the very next year the Resolution to set up a drama school at the national level, which

was later discussed, by and large, in sympathy at the First Drama Seminar (26th -30th' Apr., 1956,

New Delhi). Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, the then Vice-Chairman, announced that "I think the

necessity in India is to have a training and research centre for our actors and actresses and dancers

who will not have just superficial knowledge of the arts, but will be trained properly, with the

attention given to traditional drama as well as other aspects of theatrical education" (44, the

printed documentation of the Seminar). The participants overall felt that unless the study of drama

and theatre are urgently given an important place in the regular line of education, a generation

would not arise who takes the responsibility of strengthening contemporary theatre combining the

traditional value and the present day's efforts. The recommendation of the Seminar to the Central

and State Governments as well as the universities, concerning theatre education, was also made in

the coming year's Sangeet Natak Akademi Bulletin, no.6 (May 1957): "a Central Institute should

be established to provide training of the highest standard in acting, production, opera, ballet and

playwriting, and should equally emphasise technique and theory, both ancient and modern" ( 48);

and "both as an extra-curricular activity and as a medium of education, dramatic activity should

be encouraged in schools and colleges, and that the study of drama in the curriculum should be

given a practical basis" ( 49).

Even though a dramatic performance was the confines particularly of the school and college

extra-curricular activity for several decades, the art of acting was still hardly regarded as a subject

suitable for scholarship by administrators, legislators and academicians. Acting rather remained in

those days as a form of entertainments for parents and friends at school annual days and festivals.

Other serious amateur theatres in college, pursuing certain objectives of the socio-political reform,

resorted to a lecturer-type of acting or an allegorical articulation of the slogan, with a desperate

shortage of the artistic and technical awareness of acting. In case of the commercial theatre, some

self-taught actors who had extraordinarily gained proficiency to a celebrated level of acting, such

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as Sisir Bhaduri (1889-1959) and Jaishankar Sundari (1889-1975), attempted to transmit their

experiential knowledge and know-how to young actors in ateliers on the mode of apprenticeship

training (Bandyopadhyay 1996:50-59 and Baradi 2001: 152-155). There was a whole school of

thinking in commercial theatre circle for many decades, mostly in Bengal and Maharashtra, that

the actor must be bound as an apprentice to a master-cum-leader of the theatre company and to

his conception on acting for the training.

It was not until the inception ofNSD in 1959 that the overall process of actor preparation came

to be viewed with a certain amount of academic seriousness. Its establishment may indicate the

fact that social approvals for the professional actor training as a regular educational course began

to spread for the first time under the umbrella of centralization of the administrative power. The

School's Constitution manifests its main objectives:

... to develop suitable patterns of teaching in all branches of drama both at undergraduate and

post-graduate levels so as to establish high standards of theatre education in India and for the

purpose. develop liaison and association with colleges, institutions and universities; to

constantly endeavour at raising the technical standards of Indian plays so as to make them

aesthetically more satisfying and acceptable; to provide for undergraduate and post-graduate

teaching in the art of drama and its allied subjects thus ensuring promotion of drama and

outflow of trained personnel and teachers for the future needs of the country in the field of

drama; to conduct and promote research in classical, traditional and modern drama in India

and abroad and to collect valuable material and forms in theatre production and education; to

hold examinations and grant diplomas, certificates and other academic distinctions or titles; to

institute and award Fellowships, Scholarships, prizes. medals, financial and other assistances

with a view to promoting interest in studies and research in drama; and to assist, co-operate.

associate and collaborate itself with the efforts of other academic bodies, Governmental or

non-Governmental, in similar activities in India and abroad with a view to further the aims

and objectives of the Society ... (4-5, the official document of the Memorandum of

Association)

NSD launched in the form of a national institution of importance, involving large public funds,

to draw talent from all over India with the belief that the consequence would shape a necessary

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sensitivity and skills for the post-independent theatre aspirants as well as a kind of responsibility

to the nation. Uniquely acknowledged by the Central Government, its nation-approved diploma

became a perception of the academic, artistic 'license' of Theatre Arts, subsequently delivered a

'new' educational qualification in other institutions and recognized as a proper vocational training

or academic study for the profession. It is no exaggeration to say that many of the major actors of

Indian mainstream theatre and cinema from the 1960s onwards are the product of NSD training

programmes. The teaching profession and university professorship of Acting are today dominated

by the generation who acquired the 'academic credential', primarily from the School.

There was a virtual outbreak of interest for the art of acting in the universities since the late

1960s, and the NSD syllabus has continued to be the pivot of innovation in the curricula of new

Theatre Arts or Dramatics departments all around India. Most of other actor-training schools also

have followed in the similar direction (1.2.3). NSD's philosophical position and relevant practices

have resulted in re-positioning the standard of pedagogy within the changing landscape of Indian

theatre education. Some basic grammars of acting such as motivation, imagination, identification,

characterization and improvisation, obtained recognition as the common educational foundation

in terms of the intensively specialized course in Acting, during the initial period of the School.

These are obviously effective even today. By virtue of necessary manpower from the School's

graduates and material support from public agencies, the development of purposeful programme

of acting has been possible as a result of the School's contribution.

Today while eight members of the regular faculty take charge of the acting class in NSD, with

the exception of one, Anuradha Kapur, the professor of Acting & Direction, who attained a Ph.D.

in theatre from the University of Leeds in England after M.A. degree in English Literature from

Delhi University, all the other seven members were educated in and graduated from the School. In

order to have a clear grasp of the faculty's 'professional' attitude towards the art of acting and

thereby to analyze the School's present educational system of acting, it is imperative to make a

survey of evolution of the School's teaching philosophy, teaching method and teaching material

lo7

during the last forty-eight years of its existence.

4.3.0 Philosophic Position and Practices

According to NSD syllabuses in the years from 1959 till 2007, the course of Acting has been

conducted by the training programme that combines the skill-based teaching of a school of drama

required for entry straight into the profession, along with the academic discipline of the university,

focused on constructing 'conceptual' acting as a way of re-searching through theoretical positions.

Some teaching methods unceasingly continued in the need of stability and consistency, and some

were rejected, modified, and extended in compliance with Directors' varied philosophies of actor

preparation. There have been explicitly five major changes in the School's pedagogy from its

inception, which proceeded in different periods of the directorship, i.e. Satu Sen (1959-1962),

Ebrahim Alkazi ( 1962-1977), Babukodi Venkataramana Karanth ( 1977-1981 ), Brij Mohan Shah

(1982-1984), and Kirti Jain (1988-1995). Other changes presenting in the rest of the academic

year's syllabus were comparably minor under the directorships of Mohan Maharish (1984-1986),

Ratan Thiyam (1987-1988), Ram Gopal Bajaj (1995-2001) and Devendra Raj Ankur (2001-2007).

4.3.1 Philosophic Position and Practices in the Period of Satu Sen

In April 1959, at the initial stage of NSD, a modest syllabus was introduced for a two-year

diploma course in Dramatics in order to fulfil the following objectives: "to impart knowledge of

acting, both in theory and practice, and of producing and directing plays"; "to equip the students

with the literary history of drama and to acquaint them with the fundamentals of script-writing'';

and "to run special short-term courses on specified subjects". The integrated course of study

consisted of three divisions, i.e. Dramatic Literature, Acting, and Production. The first-year

student was taught in Acting how "to express the poetry of emotions" after investigation of "the

actor's media, e.g. mechanism of voice, its scale and range, and of body and its gestures and

movements", which means to emphasize on the individual's work on him -'self'. In the second

168

year, he began to work on the character and with other students on the basis of the textual

"interpretation and projection of character" for "achieving mutual response" like a "relation of

individual actor to the ensemble and its impact on the audience". Not only the practice but also

"the study of different theories of acting, including those of Bharata, Stanislavsky and others"

were proposed in the syllabuses from 1959 to 1962 (all above quoted from the Annual Report of

Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1959-1960 and the syllabus of 1959-1960). The third Director ofNSD,

B. V. Karanth and the fourth one, B.M. Shah were the first product of this syllabus.

It was a trial and error period for all concerned, as also a disharmony existed between the ideal

that the syllabus conceives of and the reality that it must pursue prudently. It was too short to

enclose all curriculum of acting within two years even when the students had to concentrate on

not only one specialized subject but others. Few members of the faculty had much experiences of

the 'canonical' educational system of acting in an institutionalized manner. Moreover, the School

premises had to shift two times in this period. One of the first graduates, H.V. Sharma, who later

served as the associate professor of Theatre Architecture, describes the scene of his student days

in the following interview:

(Q: the present writer, A: H.V. Sharma)

Q: What were their expectations when the students joined NSD in those days?

A: We were nineteen in all in the School. We mostly expected to learn acting. It was expected

[that] some kind of proper teaching on acting will be done because some kind of amateur

activity for training was already going on in many places, including my place. Hyderabad.

but it was just amateurish. And we wanted to supplement ourselves a kind of better acting

and better performance to understand theatre in whatever aspects we can. That was the

intention with these students. [However) The syllabus we had to follow for two years was

slightly different from our expectation.

Q: What do you mean by slightly different')

A: All of us had to participate in the play production from the first year. We produced many

one-act plays. more than twenty plays in two years. Most of them were student-productions

except two or three school-productions. But that was all unsatisfying because there was no

proper training in class for acting and directing prior to making production. Many things

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were just taught in the rehearsal in an improvisational way. The concept of training before

mounting the rehearsal place remained very vague.

Q: Who were the teaching-staffs?

A: There were so many teachers. Each was teaching one or more than one subject. As it were,

Mr. Dhanajay Narayan Thaker, my first great teacher at NSD taught mainly Natyasastra

and he also began to teach acting sometimes. Mr. Panchanan Pathak took not only Music

but Mime, Movement, Voice and Speech. Shiela Bhatia for Acting, Goverdhan Panchal for

Stage Craft, GN. Dasgupta for Stage Lighting, Nemichandra Jain for Theatre History, Indu

Bhushan Ghosh for Make-up. Kokila Motwani for Costume, and Tarseemlal Sharma for

Carpentry served that time.

Q: What was the prime teaching source in the class of acting?

A: Acting was being taught by Ms. Shiela Bhatia. She had her own understanding of

Stanislavsky [method] and began to teach it from the very beginning. She focused on his

theories of acting but it was not related to the practice. She had [the idea of] physical

exercises on the basis of improvisation but there was no connection between the theories of

Stanislavsky she had been teaching.

Q: Please elaborate her physical exercises.

A: Very basic like working on the tools, hot seats and walking like an old man or young man

and so on. That didn't give any idea of why we should do this and that and for what we

should do particularly. It was just completely, entirely basic.

Q: Was some aspect of Natyasastra taught as an acting manual')

A: No, no Natyasastra. [The study of] Natyasastra had been just introduced in those days.

Therefore there was no question for Natyasastra relating to acting. And I think [that] Shiela

Bhatia knew almost nothing at all about Na~vasastra.

Q: When did you get the ideas of Stanislavsky for the first time?

A: I heard of [the name,] Stanislavsky before I joined NSD. There was some preparation for

establishing a kind of school at my place. Hyderabad. So, few people who had some

experiences of theatre opened a smalL temporary school for a course of six months. There I

heard about Stanislavsky as an actor. That's all. And even text books written by him were

not available. After coming to NSD and after three months of course-work we got the copy

of An Actor Prepares. And we were also told that there are two more books and one of them

is Building A Character. We simply started to read An Actor Prepares and Ms. Shiela

Bhatia taught us a certain psychological acting [in reference] with An Actor Prepares for

two years. However. the depth of teaching was not so much as the author had done.

Q: And Bharata-muni's ideas?

A: We had a teacher. Mr. Dhananjay Narayan Thaker. He was basically the good student of

theatre. He guided me in the Natvasastra. Although he was acting in Parsi theatre and knew

170

[how to teach] acting, if I remember correct, he didn't teach Natyasastra on the point of

acting.

Q: Could you recall Mr. Satu Sen and his activity in the School?

A: Mr. Satu Sen was the Director, who was a well organized person. And he was sometimes

teaching the stage-lighting although he knew about acting, not only acting but many other

subjects of theatre. We have only a few classes of his in-stage-lighting, otherwise he used to

teach something about Western theatre as a matter for reference .... Then he was given to

bad habits of drinking by others. I know personally very well that he was not so bad when

he carne and served for about three years [in the School]. All that time he was very good.

But some dirty people have brought him into that habit so that he was removed.

( 12'h Dec., 2005)

After the theatre arts became a regular part of the pedagogical achievement, there was a major

change in the types of people allowed to teach and achieve tenure. At the very moment of laying

the cornerstone ofNSD, the desirable full-time teacher was a generalist rather than a specialist. If

it can be termed that the 'specialist' is trained in and possessing experiences in one specific area

of theatre in depth, the 'generalist' is well versed in the literature, history, and other practices of

the stage, capable of cultivating the student who generally equips an all-around view of theatre.

Most of the regular faculty, including Nemichandra Jain, Panchanan Pathak, Indu Bhushan Ghosh

and Shiela Bhatia, had actually accumulated the multilayered-experience of theatre as a director,

writer, actor, translator and musician through an intimate engagement with the Indian People's

Theatre Association, prior to entering the teaching profession. Even Sachindranath Sengupta who

prepared the final draft for the initial syllabus of 1959-1960 (Jain 2003: 135) was the all-India

President of the Association.

The Association was the unique pre-eminent activist set-up, pursuing the performing arts in a

pan-India scene in an organized manner, which gave the Indian cultural discourse an international

political perspective: "IPTA's commitment to an anti-imperialist, antifascist, nationwide theatre

movement produced the first powerful critique of commercialism in theatre and cinema, and

invested theatrical representation with a socio-political instrumentality they had not possessed

171

earlier" (Dharwadker 2005:86). This background made them the faculty proficient in a 'general'

sense of information in Dramatics, broadly in the socio-cultural context. It indicates that the lack

of 'special' knowledge of actor preparation had somewhat the effect of neglecting the substantial

practice of acting since the generalists often did not take time to explore the particular subject or

to give attention to detail.

The Indian People's Theatre Association, "as many other spheres, played a pioneering role in

paving the way for women to play a crucial role both as artists and directors" as well as teachers

(Dalmia 2006: 315). Bhatia, who used to call her productions the indigenous mixture of rural and

urban Punjabi opera-theatre, started to work in Delhi from the 1950s as a director and joined NSD

from its inception as a faculty of Acting. She was indeed the first modem-theatre director who

brought into Delhi theatre circle the Punjabi folk balladry tradition in which poetry, recitation,

music, dance and movement are equally employed as an effective means of expression to give

visual communication and accentuate auditory impression.

As seen in the second chapter (2.3.6), Stanislavsky focused in his early period on the faithful

manifestation of the character's 'inner' life, based on the textual and sub-textual analysis. There is

noticeably a real distinction between the sort of 'model-iconic' performance that Bhatia aimed to

produce and the early Stanislavsky method. An Actor Prepares came to be the essential reading

but was probably not applied in practices as the manual of acting. Bhatia's interpretation of SS

was limited to emphasize the psychological aspect of acting on the idea of An Actor Prepares and

in the same time, Building A Character, discussed primarily about the physical application, was

regarded as a minor supplement. Also, the concept of Rasa in BS was merely dealt in Dramatic

Literature as the theory of poetics, and not referred to as the practice of acting. The perfonnative

value of Natyasastra seemed totally absent in her acting class. NSD curriculum for Acting with

the tool kits of SS and BS had the error of its ways in the initiation, and relevant practices were

not established successfully. Moreover, the necessity of actor preparation in the independent class

of acting, which is distinguished from the rehearsal process, did not really emerge in this period

172

of the School. The actor-training programme was mostly executed at the rehearsal hall during the

production, as similar as what other amateur and commercial theatres were following in those

days.

One important issue about contributions of Satu Sen to NSD remains ambiguous in this matter.

As the first Director, he is probably the person who occupied the critical position to reveal how

SS was initially adopted into the School. Sen learned the Stanislavsky method in New York under

Richard Boleslavsky ( 1.6.1) who had a direct contact with Stanislavsky and his early method in

the First Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre where greater emphasis was on psychological analysis

along with techniques of the sensory, emotional memory. Kironmoy Raha introduces him in the

Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre:

Pioneering technician of Bengali theatre ... proceeded to New York and joined the American

Laboratory Theatre. He nursed his Jove of theatre there by study, hard work. and an

indefatigable will to learn the many aspects of production and direction under Richard

Boleslavsky, former associate and disciple of Konstantin Stanislavsky. Sen became assistant

production manager and assistant technical director of the institute and produced there and

later at the newly started Woodstock Playhouse many plays, directing some of them. In his

subsequent travels to Europe he met and saw such renowned producers and directors at work

as Vsevolod Meyerhold, Max Reinhardt, and Gordon Craig. (2004:429)

There is a tendency within Indian theatre circle to recognize Sen as the pioneer in techniques

of the psychological or three-dimensional lighting and the revolving stage. Any physical evidence

on his interest in actor training is very little. There are opposite points of view and direct criticism

on his educational activities. While H.V. Sharma and Kironmoy Raha appreciate his contribution

to Indian theatre and the School, Suresh Awasthi devalues it: "He had acquired some experience

in the stage lighting in the US in the 40s ... [but] he had absolutely no knowledge of the theatrical

traditions of the country and of contemporary situation" ( 1981 ). Some others describes that he lay

behind a shadow of the past and was rarely present in the School due to his addiction to alcohol

(Kaushal 1981). Yet, Awasthi's critique is somewhat sardonic and controversial. Sen actually left

for Europe in 1925 with a plan to study electrical engineering, but instead changed his mind soon

to join the American Laboratory Theatre in New York. After intensive training and working there,

the year when he finally returned back to India was 1932. He was then involved in the transitional

period of modem Indian theatre or at least Bengali theatre: "at the Rungmahal and Natyaniketan

playhouses he set about reforming, remodelling production methods and practices which, after

Bhaduri's earlier innovations, had lost their drive and shine" (Raha 2004:429).

Founded in 1924 by Boleslavsky in collaboration with two former actresses of the Moscow Art

Theatre, Maria Ouspenskaya and Germanova, the American Laboratory Theatre was instrumental

in shaping application of the Stanislavsky method to the American teaching of acting. Stella Adler,

Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman were its early members. After Boleslavsky left for Hollywood

in 1929, Gemanova took over the directorship and the Laboratory Theatre carried on until 1932

(Clurman 1957:16). Noticeably, the period of Sen's foreign sojourns (1925-1932) flowed along

with that of the Laboratory Theatre ( 1924-1932). He seemed to have professional knowledge and

experiences on the early Stanislavsky method. His primary career in US as technical director and

production manager is not to be merely assumed as that he was ignorant of acting. It is a common

notion that Sen's intervention in the matter of the psychological lighting is nothing but to show

his profound understanding of the actor's 'inner' state.

In the School, Sen did not take vigilance of the acting class but the set-cum-light design classes

as the Director. It is rather appropriate to assume that as there were just few technicians in those

days who could deliver knowledge of stage and light in an institutionalized manner, it was more

urgent for Sen to prioritize it over acting. The official record of his teaching methodology and its

relative practices was almost erased. Any written evidence is not available today in the academic

documentation of the Sangeet Natak Akademi and NSD. Sen's educational achievements between

1932 and 1962 possess the academic value for the further research work.

Nemichandra Jain, who was initially assigned the task to assist in the establishment of NSD as

an officer of the Sangeet Natak Akademi and later served in the School as an associate professor

174

of Modern Indian Drama till 1979, describes the transition scene of 1962:

When Mr. Sen created problems because of his drunkenness, he had to leave and I was

appointed as Assistant Director after a regular interview. At that time Sombhu Mitra was

approached to take over as Director. I was really looking forward to Sombhu Mitra taking

over because I was very impressed with his vision of theatre. But he refused to get trapped in

the bureaucratic hassles in spite of a lot of persuasion. Then Utpal Dutt's name was proposed

and he was sent a letter of appointment. His coming was certain and I had also corresponded

with him as I was looking after the School at that time. But at the last minute, probably due to

political reasons, he could not join. Finally Alkazi was invited to join and he joined in 1962.

(2003:135)

4.3.2 Philosophic Position and Practices in the Period of Ebrahim Alkazi

To impart seriousness and responsibility to a functional structure of actor preparation, to create

a sense of security and stability in its pedagogy, and to ensure a higher academic and professional

standard for students of acting, all these came only with the coming of Ebrahim Alkazi. A general

outline of his fifteen-year long presence in the School obviously matters to this study. It is almost

impossible to identify the back-bone frame of NSD syllabus for actor preparation without at the

same time identifying Alkazi 's teaching methodology and practices of acting. From 'no school' to

'non-school' to 'responsible school' towards a search for the 'professional' modern actor-training

school, "he initiated the movement which aimed at the entrenchment rather than effervescence"

(Sondhi 1981) and immersed himself into the School. It is not to say that Alkazi alone was able to

translate the institutional aims into reality or to sustain purposeful programmes all by himself in

the history of the School. There is, however, no doubt about Alkazi 's immense contribution to the

establishment of the 'fundamental' educational system of NSD. The question of its effectiveness

still stands vividly and today's NSD syllabus is the legacy of his tenure.

Alkazi came back to Bombay in 1950 from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London,

claiming to have leamt consciously "what I should not do in theatre ... [and] that work in the

theatre is largely a matter of self education" (Alkazi 1975:290), and also to make spontaneously

l7S

"a systematic study of the theories, training methods and production procedures of the great

Russian directors, Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Vakhtangov, Tairov and Kommisarjevsky; of Godon

Craig and Adolphe Appia; the French theatre pioneers, Andra Antoine, Jacques Copeau, Charles

Dullin, Gaston Baty, Georges Pitoeff, followed by Louis Jouvet, Jean-Louis Barrault, and Michel

St. Denis (who just then was Director of the Old Vic Theatre School); the Group Theatre in the

USA under Lee Strasberg, Cheryl Crawford, Harold Clurman and Stella Adler; the Federal

Theatre Project under the dynamic leadership of Hallie Flanagan (whom I was later privileged to

know)[; and) ... Irwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht" (Alkazi 1981 ). His efforts of studying these

significant practitioners' works indicates that he attempted to acquire three important aspects of

theatre arts in the period of the canonical western drama school: "Theatre as craft: technical skill

and expertise of the highest quality, [secondly] theatre as art: originality, creative imagination and

vision, [as well as] the social responsibility of theatre: the rejection of theatre as self-indulgence,

exhibitionism or passive aestheticism, theatre as provoker of thought and instigator to action,

theatre as instrument of social change" (the syllabus of 1971-1972).

Along with a pioneering stage-effect in Bombay English theatre, Alkazi engaged himself in the

educational field during eight years since 1954, while running his own Theatre Unit's School of

Dramatic Arts, which was primarily established for the actor training. He explained, "We did this

through systematic courses of study ... , covered the contemporary Indian situation as a whole:

history, economics, sociology, literature, art, providing the classes in movement (Kathakali) and

mime: improvisation and interpretation; speech (Hindi and English); stage design; costume

design; lighting; make-up etc., providing the technical skill and expertise" (1981 ). Alkazi also

conducted an overall theatre-training course in the Natya Academy, Bombay as the Principal until

1962 when he began an enormously influential fifteen-year stint in the crucial, formative phase of

NSD. It is generally accepted that Alkazi 's philosophical base and practices of theatre arts became

the context within or against which Marathi practitioners located their own. Shanta Gokhale, in

her Pla_vwright at the Centre,- Marathi Dramafrom 1843 to the Present, comments on his artistic

176

position in Marathi theatre circle:

He imparted to the members of his group the idea of theatre as discipline, theatre as a ritual

and theatre as serious self-exploration and self-expression. Vijaya Mehta trained for some

time under Alkazi before forming Rangayan, her theatre laboratory. The poet Nissim Ezekiel

owed to Alkazi his appreciation and understanding of painting. Playwright Gieve Patel, who

was also a painter, poet and doctor, acquired his knowledge of different aspects of theatre

from his work in Alkazi's productions. Many others in theatre and art owe as much, if not

more, to Alkazi. His [work] was one of the biggest influences in the shaping of the new

theatre in Mumbai with directors of the stature of Mehta and Satyadev Dubey taking it up

from where he left off. (312-313)

In 1954 at his age of 29, Alkazi participated in formulating the scheme of a national school of

drama under the special invitation of Ashfaque Hussain, the then Secretary of the Ministry of

Education, who tried to persuade him to take up the stewardship and build the proposed national

institution. Hussain assured him a free hand and promised a full corporation at the ministerial

level but Alkazi did not accept it at that time. Alkazi said that it was because "I did not consider it

proper to take the top job in a scheme devised by myself; and secondly, because I felt that I was

too young and inexperienced to assume such a responsibility" (1981 ). The blueprint was finally

implemented several years later in 1958 and the School had to wait for him to take over as the

Director in 1962 when the Sangeet Natak Akademi and the Ministry already faced the issue to

close down the School due to the mess it had got itself into. The Akademi's Vice-Chairman, Mr.

Mozumdar finally proposed him to see if he could retrieve the situation. Alkazi's knowledge and

experiences with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, London and the Theatre Unit's School of

Dramatic Arts, Bombay infused a new life into NSD. The first major change he brought about in

the School was to introduce a comprehensively revised three-year course with four specializations

as its high point for the student who was admitted in 1962.

According to the new syllabus, the course of study is common to all students for the first year,

which "consists of the instruction in Dramatic Literature (Eastern and Western) and the theory &

177

practice of Acting, Scenic Design, Costume Design, Lighting, Make-up, Theatre Architecture etc".

The inter-relatedness of various subjects of theatre arts and literature began to be apparent in the

syllabus in order to connect theory with practice in an organized manner and to establish a link

between Indian theatre tradition and modem conceptualization. During the second and third years,

they were "devoted to specialization in any one of the following: Acting, Direction and Stage

Craft [as well as] School Dramatics i.e., training in the teaching of Dramatics to school children

and in the method of using dramatics as a medium of instruction". "Specialization in Radio and

Television is also contemplated when circumstances permit" (all above quoted from the Annual

Report of Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1971-1972). Each specialization of the course was designed to

operate independently but as a part of the larger training programme with a consistency and logic.

Limited to a specific focus on specialization of Acting, the first-year student primarily devoted

to 'work on self', as confirmed through the distribution of marks: "Total marks of Acting (300) -

Yoga (50), Dance Movement & Mime (50), Music (50), Voice and Speech (50), Improvisation &

Interpretation (50) and Role Analysis (50)". The second-year student had to spend more time for

'work on character': "Total (700)- Yoga (50), Dance Movement & Mine (50), Music (50), Voice

& Speech (75), Improvisation & Interpretation (100), Role Analysis (75), Make-up (75), and

Participation in Products (150)" (the syllabus of 1975-1976, italic mine). The overall curriculum

of the second year was framed for the "aids to coax feelings & creative approach to building [a]

character: atmosphere, psychological gesture, and tempo-rhythm; the character analysis and the

design of a role: the actor's personal analysis from the point view of positive qualities, disabilities

and limitations; the acting in crowd scenes: different styles of acting, style and stylisation, acting

in comedy, acting according to Natya Shastra; and lastly the performance: the participation in the

school's productions" (the syllabus of 1972-1973).

In the final year, the total marks increased to 900, divided into the theory of acting ( 400) and

the practices (500). Certain relevant subjects that were theoretically explored in such a context

are: "the acting theories (marks:75) - acting in the Sanskrit, Greek and Roman acting, acting in

17~

Chinese and Japanese theatres, acting in Bhavai, Jatra and other folk forms, Commedia Dell' Arte,

Elizabethan acting, Realistic acting, acting in the Epic Theatre, and acting today; the study of the

great actors and their role (75) - Garrick, Kean, Irving, Rachel, Duse, Stanislavsky, Olivier, and

great Marathi, Bengali, Gujarathi actors; the analysis of roles (1 00)- the written analysis covers

the various roles in the school and student production in which the student has participated; and

also the dramatic literatures (150) - Classical Indian Drama, Modem Indian Drama and Western

Drama as same as the Producer's course". The practical subjects consist of three areas: "Speech

(1 00) - the interpretation of prose, verse and dramatic passage, the characterization and style in

speech, and the speech in radio and television; Improvisation and interpretation (150) - an

advanced improvisation, the interpretation of classical and contemporary roles in a variety of

styles; and then Performance and Make-up (250) - the students performances in the various roles

in the whole year". In addition, the students were also required to make "tours in different parts of

the country for training in one traditional theatre form per year ... (and] the participation in public

performances each year, of about six full-length plays from different periods and in a variety of

styles" (all above quoted from the syllabus of 1966-1967).

Memories of the NSD production in the period of Alkazi have been generally intertwined with

those of his pedagogical interventions in a dynamic complexity of acting process and its styles.

Keval Arora comments, "As for stage work, ... Alkazi's emphasis on the grammar of acting, the

rigor of minute analysis of character and motivation, and its expression through movement and

gesture, was to produce the finest actors to emerge from the NSD" (2003:29-30). For the fist time,

people began to think of acting in terms of the regular subject, warranted a methodical grounding

in the institution. It is to be noted that it is quite practicable, to Alkazi, to achieve a 'unique' yet

'universal' training programme, containing a complete methodological approach to various styles

of acting. His belief was that "it made the graduate feel totally at ease with almost any fonn of

theatrical expression" ( 1981 ). Here, one paragraph in the Report of the High-Powered Committee

(1990) is his testimony for this root-question on actor preparation:

179

7.16 What kind of training must go into the making of a contemporary actor who would

interpret in fairly quick succession Kalidasa's Dushyanta, Karnad's Tughlaq, Sophocles'

Oedipus Rex, Dharmvir Bharti's Ashvatthama, Shakespeare's Othello; who would on

occasion perform in a Yakshagana or Noh play, a Brecht play, a Nautanki, a Moliere farce, a

musical extravaganza; and who would be equally at home in television and the films? Can

such virtuosity be achieved through a short period of intensive training? Quite a few past

students of the National School of Drama have demonstrated through their careers that this is

indeed possible, [who include Om Shivpuri, Manohar Singh, Surekha Sikri, Uttara Baokar,

Om Puri and Nasiruddin Shah.] The point is: what is the content of the course, what is the

nature of the training, and what is the system adopted to ensure a fairly high standard of

achievement? (123, []mine)

The syllabuses for the years from 1966 to 1977 show a paradigm of the training programme

Alkazi carefully framed for cultivating the student of acting who "today has to be the interpreter

of the 'total' history of mankind ... not as a half-baked amateur, but in each as a meticulously­

trained professional" (Alkazi 1981). In order to attain "the objective of the actor's art: creation of

character", first of all, "the routine exercises for an actor" or "the general requirements of an

actor" on the body and voice culture were consciously emphasized in all grades of the three years,

consisting of "Yoga, Dance Movement & Mime, Improvisation, Judo, Manipuri Martial Arts,

Modem Dance for the body; Speech, Music, Voice Production, Interpretation, Perfonnance in

Plays for the voice; and Make-up, Kathakali exercises for the face" (the syllabus of 1966-1967).

The classes of the movement and the martial arts were to "develop relaxation, grace and correct

posture" through "covering space; walking; turning; occupying a chair; different uses of objects

on the stage; handing doors and properties; entries and exits". The mime class covered the skills

of "occupation mime; opening doors and windows; handling different objects with different

weights and sizes; throwing; picking up; breaking objects in different moods; expressing ideas in

a given situation; enacting small mime stories". The improvisation and plastic movement were for

the "exercises on sensing; preparing; attaching; dramatic opposition; and the individual and ~'Toup

improvisations" (all above quoted from the syllabus of 1966-67). The voice and speech class was

180

designed to focus on investigating the mechanism and anatomy of vocal-organization, capable of

adapting the diction and interpretation for any styles of performance. The facial expression was

trained separately from the bodily exercise as similar as the case of Bharata 's Mukhajabhinaya or

Upangabhinaya, discussed earlier in the BS Technique IV (3.3.4).

Alkazi attached a great value to the inner technique of acting or "the art of creative acting and

theatrical reality", by which the routine exercises are applied completely. Certain vocabularies of

the psychological aspect of acting repeatedly appeared in the curriculum of Actor's Course in the

syllabuses of 1963-1977, such as concentration of attention, observation, relaxation, imagination,

sensory and emotional memory, communion and adjustment, and given circumstances, which is

no more than the fundamental grammars of SS. The training probrramme vividly shared much in

common with Stanislavsky's ideas of the psycho-physical operation such as that: the 'relaxation'

is essential to both training process and performance (2.3.1 ); the actor has to accept the 'given

circumstances' of the play as completely as possible (2.2.2); and the actor, in the vein of the

'sensory and emotional memory', identifies with the character by the 'imagination'- thinking and

feeling as if he was a role in the circumstances of the play (2.3.3). The students were taught to

develop the ability to focus on the objective that the character is struggling to attain, through a

thought, enclosed in the 'circle of attention' and fixed on a definite point by will and choice,

which means the 'concentration' (2.3.2). All these relevant particulars have still continued to play

the important role in today's actor-training programme ofNSD.

Alkazi was the first person who attempted to implant the practical use of the early Stanislavsky

method into the curriculum. One of the core-manuals, "An Actor Prepares by Stanislavski, [and

the Stanislavskian model of acting-manuals such as) To the Actor by Michael Chekhov, The Actor

in Training by Morris Fishman", were recommended as the primary reference book (the syllabus

of 1966-1967, [ ] mine). In 1967, a seminar on Stanislavsky's work was held for three days under

the supervision of Ramesh Chandra, Dr. K.C. Khanna and Mohan Rakesh. However, rather than

the independent and regular class of acting, the use of the Stanislavsky method mostly depended

181

on a mechanism of the rehearsal, requiring a long-span and research-oriented process in 'reading'.

Alkazi asked students to examine backgrounds for designing the set, costume and stage property

as well as working on the character. As it were, the grammar of SS was mainly transmitted to the

students while analyzing the character and the play in the rehearsal or before the rehearsal begins.

K.M. Sontakke, a graduate of 1966, describes scenes of the rehearsal process in an interview by

the present writer:

At times, every student researched some aspect of the work. . . . We started from the

understanding of Stanislavsky method about how to analyze textual and sub-textual meanings.

and how the psychological excavation arrives at audiences via [a line of] the words. What is

use of the concept, objective, super-objective, given circumstances. motivation and so on?

Stanislavsky method suggested to us the idea how to deal with the text. And so we became

dram at urge and researched the period and style of the play, author, language, theme ... Alkazi

showed paintings, films and also brought in guest lecturers who are knowledgeable about the

play. He guided us to visit museums or galleries or other locations that would give us ideas

for visualizing the play ... I remember that we rehearsed a play more than 3 months.

(91h Jan., 2003)

As discussed in the second chapter (2.2.2 and 2.3.6), this concentration on 'a through research

of the play' was not made any more by Stanislavsky after the early 1930s when he began to drop

the table-practices and undergo revision of the Method of Physical Actions. In this period of NSD,

SS was mostly used for the rigorous rehearsal model of historical research, relating to 'work on

character'. To Alkazi, the major emphasis to apply the grammar of SS was on making the play-

production, not specially directed towards training the student of acting. There was little serious

attention to the systematic, methodological approach of SS towards work on the actor himself in a

sense of modem actor preparation. The actual operation of the curriculum for Acting was often, in

reality, taken away from the classroom and subordinated to the production. Kirti Jain criticizes,

"That is one way of giving training which I feel is much more of a repertory company's way of

training [than of the modem institutional]" (1995:13, []mine), nearer to the apprenticeship mode

182

of training, pursuing to learn the technique through imitating one's master or to develop skills in

accordance with the formulaic 'lines of business'. Even though the formulization of SS has taken

place in the School mainly through the production, it was no doubt instrumental in 'popularizing'

Stanislavsky's theories and practices for the educational programme. The inner life of character,

motivation, psychological action, text analysis, and understanding of the subtext are, concerning

SS, as pertinent today in NSD classes as these were forty years before.

Along with the grammar of SS, the meaning of 'authentic' realism-framework came into Hindi

theatre under the pedagogical and visual intervention of Alkazi. It was, by and large, in virtue of

his efforts and contributions that Hindi was recognized as an eminent language for drama and

theatre and Hindi playwrights became stage-worthy in public: 'There was no Hindi theatre before

Alkazi performed Ashadh Ka Ek Din .... though we accuse Alkazi of western drama all the time,

I wonder why we forget that it was Alkazi who started Hindi theatre" (B. V Karanth 1981 ). One of

the most significant Hindi playwrights in post-independent India, Mohan Rakesh wrote the play

of Ashadh Ka Ek Din in 1958 and Alkazi directed it on the materiality of a hyper-realistic stage in

1962. His other plays, Lahron Ke Raj hans and Adheadhure were written and just performed in the

1960s that was the moment the whole understanding of intense realism in Hindi theatre circle has

been reformed, at least, in the point of audience's view. Anuradha Kapur concurs, "Pedagogically

the NSD of the early 60s took up the Stanislavskian method of building a character and made an

intervention by creating actors who brought a new realism to the Hindi stage" ( 1996:44).

Some graduates of NSD became visible as distinctive realistic actors, like Naseeruddin Shah,

Om Shivpuri, Raj Babbar and Rohini Hattangadi, who were trained under the guidance of Alkazi

and attained the fine cine credit in 1980s. Another discussion about the function of SS came when

their film appearance showed marked improvement in the cinematic-acting area. As maintaining a

laudable balance between theatre and film, they covered the parallel screen with the equipment of

certain grammars of SS. Their acting to delineate psychological nuances has been acclaimed as a

modern style of acting and recognized as a new model to students of acting. It is probably

:oncemed with two reasons that "as modem actors they do not feel equipped to deal with modern

>lays till they have the training to deal with realistic plays" (Jain 1995: 18), and also that many

;tudents have aspirations to go into the field of media, which is generally done in a more realistic

;tyle of acing. Naseeruddin Shah, as a visiting faculty, conducts a short-term based Acting

Workshop in NSD for the final-year student. The psychological aspect of acting is emphasized in

1is class on the basis of the teaching material, An Actor Prepares.

The use of BS was continually suggested for the actor training as seen in the syllabuses from

l959 to 1977 in which Natyasastra was referred to as a 'teaching material'. BS was essentially a

metaphorical' work (3.2.2) and still remained so 'traditional' that the student of acting found it

lifficult to relate with his own times and identity. Most faculty-members of acting were not really

·eady to instruct its practical application, responding comprehensively to a concise description of

naturity ofBharata's concepts. There was no proper class arrangement for Indian theatre tradition

n which the overall outline and feasible use of BS is possibly re-searched in multiple angles of

~xamining the living performing arts forms in regions (3.1.1 and 1.2.2). "Occasionally, of course,

1 lecture-demonstration was organized or someone [was] asked to come and teach, but all these

1appened in an ad hoc manner ... [that] is not incorporated in the teaching programmes" (Awasthi

W01 :48).

As the Alkazi's contemporaries, only few practitioners including Habib Tanvir, Shanta Gandhi,

(.N. Panikkar, and B.V Karanth, were experimenting with productions that reconstructed ways

nspired from BS but again, their efforts were not expanding effectively to a regular institutional

tctivity. In fact, after joining the School as an associate professor of Classical Indian Drama in

1966, Gandhi produced Bhasa's Madh);mn ~vayog and Urubhangam, chronologically the first to

·evive Bhasa in modern Indian theatre, as well as Bhodayana 's Bhahawadajju K(vam in the next

year. Her three-year teaching in the School was, however, mostly limited to the literature-oriented

;ubject of Classical Indian Drama. B.V Karanth comments, "Nothing was done about classical

Indian theatre in spite of Shanta Gandhi. Alkazi of course, did not understand it. He used to say

184

he did not. He tried, in his own way, but he did not succeed" ( 1981 ).

Alkazi probably had neither expert experiences of drawing on the unique quality of BS which

differentiates it from western kinds, nor profound knowledge for interpreting the ancient Sanskrit

play in accordance with Bharata's injunction. Rather, he attempted to seek ways in which BS may

best meet contemporary needs by respecting a perennial source in Natyasastra so that the actor is

able to combine the discernment of obtaining its identity with a readiness for experimentation or

innovation. His idea of the contemporary Indian theatre's closeness to BS and its value for actor

preparation is well versed in Enact:

Art is an expresswn of its own times. It is the reaction of artists to the contemporary

situation .... One can certainly resurrect various forms of the art of the past, but only as

historical research. This may enrich and deepen our understanding of art, but it cannot be a

substitute for contemporary expression .... one can not understand the relatedness of all this,

unless one has developed a modem consciousness, a contemporary sensibility .... There are

references in the Natya Shastra ... but for which particular type of play each was used [in

which form of playhouse). no one can rationally explain. All the "classical Indian" touches are

merely Gupta-period ornamentation in no way crucial to the theatre's basic form. As far as I

am connected, it does not matter a damn what matter is the shape and structure of the

performance. For the Sanskrit theatre, in essence, was nothing more than the body of the actor

in an empty space. This body conjured up a visio&, in the mind's eye of the audience. (1981)

He staged two ancient Sanskrit play-productions, Kalida sa's Sakuntala in 1964 and Sudraka 's

Mrichchhakatika in 1975, with the purpose of searching a fresh language of contemporary Indian

theatre. Bhahawadajju Kiyam of Bhodayana appeared on the stage twice in his tenure, directed by

Shanta Gandhi in 1967 and Amal Allana in 1976. Noticeably, it was Alkazi who began to invite

experts from the field of traditional performing arts to work with his students. Shivarama Karanth

from the Yaksagana Kala Kendra Centre in Udipi, was brought to perform one of its repertoires,

Bishma Pratigya and conduct a three-month workshop on Yaksagana in 1974. The students also

made a Nautanki-style production of Laila Manju in 1975 under the guidance of an eminent guru

of Nautanki, named Giriraj. The traditional theatre fonns including Bhavai, Tamasa, Yaksagana

and Nautanki rediscovered their own perforrnative values through the productions of NSD and

therein acquired a national status. The invitation of traditional theatre artists as the visiting faculty

has been regularized today in the curriculum of the School.

In 1976, one year before Alkazi resigned, he took the students out of the School for a tour of

Haryana towns to expose them directly to the regional theatre form and its real environments that

remained unattended. A month-long intensive theatre workshop in regional areas for the second -

year student originated from this project. Alkazi also dispatched two associate professors of Stage

Craft, Goverdhan Panchal and Dev Mohapatra, to Kerala for research work on Kutiyattam, i.e. the

only existing ancient Sanskrit theatre (3.1.1): "Through its pioneering study of the Kootiyattam

and Koothambamams, the School investigated the last vestiges of the Sanskrit theatre, and tried to

trace its developments back to its early beginnings" (Alkazi 1981 ).

Suresh Awasthi critiques, "what hurts me most is that even after 20 years of its existence the

School has not succeeded in evolving a system of training actors, utilizing our own rich and old

theatre traditions and methods .... this, to [my] mind, is the greatest failure of the School" (1981).

R.G Bajaj expresses his regret in Alkazi, "In fact, had a person like him, a teacher like him been

able to incorporate the indigenous, the results would have been far superior and far more durable

than they are likely to be now .... we have the idea today, but not a dynamic individual to give

those ideas a shape" (1981). It seems quite true that any indigenous system of the modern actor

training was not evolved within an institutional framework in the period of Alkazi. However, it is

also fair to comment that Alkazi spared no efforts to initiate a necessary 'beginning' step towards

implantation ofBS into the NSD training programme.

"Strong discipline is inherent in and inseparable from this profession; but set through personal

example [of understanding], not through dicta, fiats, threats, warning - all these stupid bullying

tactics which are undignified, and signed of weakness, not strength", said Alkazi (1981 ). Another

major change he brought about in the School was to inculcate a sense of discipline, responsibility

and professional attitude into the overall scope of school life and academic constituents such as

1~6

the class work, rehearsal process, and play production. A kind of absenteeism, unpunctuality and

slovenliness were strictly avoided as the "cleaning of the toilet" (Manohar 1981) so as to reshape

the student-individual's mind-set or self-esteem. Alkazi especially emphasized that the student of

acting should realize the sociology of performative practice through scrutinizing human lives, not

glancing over them loosely just for a mere performance. Reeta Sondhi comments, "his approach

to the theatre as a part of life - the theatre man as a part of the society that bred him and towards

which he had to make a conscious, concerted contribution, instigating change where change was

imminent and building certain basic values - was the one single concern as teacher and head of

institution which meant far more to him than the imparting of any theatre fonns or techniques"

(1981 ).

In Alkazi's tenure, NSD productions obtained artistic sophistication and set a high standard,

impacting a large number of students who later made significant contributions to theatre arts in

their own regions, to name a few in alphabetical order, Amal Allana, Anupam Kher, B. Jayashree,

Bhanu Bharti, Bansi Kaul, D.R. Ankur, K.M. Sontakke, Kirti Jain, Manohar Singh, M.K. Raina,

Mohan Maharishi, Nasiruddin Shah, N.M. Chaudhury, Om Puri, Om Shivpuri, Raj Babbar, Ram

Gopal Bajaj, Ranjit Kapoor, Ratan Thiyam, R.P. Prasanna Kumar, Robin Kumar Das, Rohini

Hattangadi, Sai Paranjpe, S. Ebotombi, Sudha Sharma, Surekha Sikri, Tripurari Sharma, Uttara

Baokar, and V Ramamurthy.

4.3.3 Philosophic Position and Practices in the Period of B. V. Karanth

The next major wide spread public discussion on the method of actor training in the institution

came when controversial issues on Alkazi's educational methodology were gradually rising to the

surface after his departure from NSD in May 1977. His highly centralized, tightly single-handed

way of teaching through play-production was believed to have prevented the School from actual

institutionalization in which "every student is able to get an opportunity" and "various other kinds

of expression find their way to the drama school" (Jain 1995: 13 ). Whereas Alkazi accepted, in

IH7

practice, the worth of bringing up the exceptional or specialized student-artist in the context of

profession-related theatre study, his opposite side insisted that more generalized academic courses

should be, in principle, targeted for all students equally. While the former placed a high valuation

on the idea of 'special-ness' following a more categorized mastery in the fullest possible range of

practice, the latter were rather concerned about the danger of recognizing the 'supposed' special­

ness of student-individual's perception in theatre education.

Some argued that, in the period of Alkazi, little pedagogical attention was devoted to introduce

students to the variety of acting and directing styles that would prepare themselves for a certain

challenge. It was debatably made as an object of criticism whether Alkazi's students really "did

not see beyond the teacher's vision and his fascinating, charismatic work", and "as a result of it

naturally there was one mode in which people acted, there was one method to which they got

exposed" (Bajaj 1981 ). Some even claimed to reconsider thoroughly "the entire training process

in Mr. Akazi's time [which] was centred around the production" because "none of us [or students]

were really aware of any teaching methodology in relation to any these practical subjects, whether

it was voice training, acting training, movement training", and thereby "no training methodology

evolved, no teachers were created" (Jain 1995: 13). Babukodi Venkataramana Karanth was ideally

standing in the forefront of the opposition of Alkazi and took over the directorship on December,

1977, six months later after his resignation. Karanth criticizes Alkazi 's contributions in Enact:

Alkazi was so capable himself that he could take every class. He was an excellent teacher. But

he was not an architect of an institution. He could not be self-effacing .... It does not matter in

the least if students are often completely opposed to one another in their ideology. In fact that

would be the measure of maturity of an institution. But it was the reverse here at NSD.

Students were not allowed to attempt anything on their own - develop anything away from

Alkazi. And then I have noticed another thing. Those who followed Alkazi blindly,

completely failed to contribute anything to theatre .... The main point is the subject of

instruction in their entirety. What was the acting system. the design system, the speech system.

the teaching system? ... I realised the mistake that had been made by Alkazi ... Alkazi taught

discipline. neatness and dignity. Excellent. But then these don't make a system.

188

Karanth was intimately associated with NSD first as a student and later as a teacher. He was the

first NSD graduate to be appointed to the directorship. After he came, the syllabus was revised

with the major purpose of dropping the concept of specialization, but instead introduced with an

integrated theatre-training course, as it was felt that specialization is an "isolated training which

hindered a competent integrated view of theatre". Karanth trimmed and tightened the syllabus.

For the first and second year, the common course was designed for every student in accordance

with a sense of the times that "the present needs of the country for comprehensive and all round

training and to ensure optimum utilization of the time, talent and facilities available". These two

years of the training generally consisted of four divisions: "(i) Dramatic Literature - Traditional

Drama, Classical and Contemporary Indian Drama, Western and Asian Drama; (ii) Theatre

Technique - Scenic Design, Lighting, Theatre Architecture, Costumes, Make-up, Carpentry,

Property, Mask and Model Making: (iii) Acting - Voice and Speech, Acting, Improvisation,

Movement in different styles, Music, Yoga, Martial Arts, Acrobatics, Mime; and (iv) Play

Production" (all above quoted from the syllabus of 1979-1980). In the third year, the student was

required to take a series of short-tenn courses, providing an advanced level of training in the

subject of their choice, mostly from Acting and Theatre Technique. A short dissertation (Honors)

on an important aspect of theatre arts under the guidance of faculty had to be compiled.

A graduate of 1981, Suresh Shetty, currently a lecturer of Mime & Movement describes the

school scene at his student days in an interview by the present writer:

I was a student during the Karanth 's times when there was no specialization. We were actually

supposed to be with it before joining the SchooL but basically there was no input of that sort

of direction at all. So we were all doing voice classes. acting classes, movement classes. some

classes in designing very few, for three years, what was called the integrated course. Karanth

tried to take care to prepare students through preparing a well organized syllabus. And he tried

to open the School up to various view points. Some fresh ideas and courses went into the

curriculum and many eminent theatre practitioners were invited for class and production not

only from India but abroad, like Habib Tan vir. Vijaya Mehta, Badal Sircar, Fritz Benewitz [of

the Berliner Ensemble), and Cecily Berry [of the Royal Shakespeare Company). I think we

189

learnt more from the visiting directors. For me, I got to work with Benewitz two times in the

School. Specially in participating in his production of Mid Summer Night's Dream, I became

aware of what the actor must think of, what directing means, and what theatre is. (12'h Aug.,

2005)

Quite a few ex-graduates of the School were newly appointed to the regular faculty positions,

thereby who should define a subject by providing continuity and commitment in a serious course

of study over several years, i.e. Ram Gopal Bajaj for Acting, Kirti Jain for Modern Indian Drama,

Robin Das for Scenic Design, S.B. Kulakrni for Make-up, H.V. Sharma for Theatre Architecture,

and B.M. Shah for Acting and Direction. Karanth attempted to make the School as itself stronger

than individuals. He officially adopted the semester system of examinations each year, consisting

of two terms. There was the regular evaluation of students during and at the end of each semester

in which the assessment of class work, group projects, and the participation in production were

considered separately from assessments of their perfonnance in production and examination. All

assessments and evaluations were expressed in grade according to university standards, i.e. "A(+)

=9, A=8, A(-)=7, B(+)=6, B=5, B(-)=4, C(+)=3, C=2, C(-)=1" (the syllabus of 1981-1982). This

was taken into account from one semester to the next till the final year, resulting in the award of

the diploma in Dramatics. During Karanth 's tenure, the Diploma was recognized as the highest

qualification for appointment to superior posts in the field of theatre by the Ministry of Education

and Culture, the Government of India in 1980 and also accepted as equivalent to M.A. degree by

the Association of Indian Universities in 1981. Besides, a scheme offering the fellowship to the

graduate for the period of one year to work on a research project of their choices on theatre arts

was established for the first time.

Karanth is distinguished from his contemporary theatre personality by the specific achievement

of geographical mobilization, multiple linguistic association, and intimate institutional afliliation.

He began his theatre career at the age of 7 while playing the title role of Nanna Gopa/a or My

Gopa/a, directed by P. K. Narayana. He left home to join the then renowned professional theatre

190

company of Kamataka, Gubbi Veeranna Company in 1944, when just touching his teens. Over six

years under an apprenticeship training of the Company, he experienced stage arts as a child-actor

and singer. The memory of images right from his childhood was perhaps continuous in his notion

of theatre through a lifetime: "Karanth 's world of art is full of ... the vivid memory of childhood"

(Taneja 2002: I 03).

Before enrolling at NSD in 1960, he received extensive training in music and Hindi literature at

Banaras Hindu University where he acquired his master's degree in arts, building a relationship

with the well known litterateur, Hazari Prasad Dwivedi and taking Hindustan music lessons from

the maestro, Omkamath Thakur. After prudently pursuing the modem institutionalized training in

Dramatics at NSD, Karanth took pains to re-search a valid Indian contemporary theatre, mostly in

the backward Hindi belt and Kamataka region, through holding theatre workshops, experimenting

with the traditional form, and generating theatre awareness. Also, he played an active role in the

children's theatre for about ten years at Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, New Delhi. His scope of activities

was rather more aggrandized while serving about four years in NSD as the Director. A department

of Extension Programme for organizing the ten-week intensive theatre workshop was set up in the

School under his guidance in 1978 in order to cater the need of amateur-theatre practitioners in

various regions. In the same year, the School added the children's theatre training unit and run the

first children's theatre workshop that has been later developed towards the Theatre-in-Education

ofNSD.

For Karanth, theatre is absolutely the actor's art and acting must take place at the core of the

theatre art. He attempted to introduce the actor-oriented academic programme and to build up the

institution for preparation of the ideal actor. His teaching philosophy of acting is well apparent in

the following quotation.

I have planed the training schedule at the School with the actor as the centre. Theatre to me. is

an actor's medium. An actor's medium is the actor himself No one and nothing else. It is the

actor's own body, his voice, his sensibility which are going to communicate. Therefore there

191

has to be a solid practical training, which determines the voice, the body and the sensibility of

the trainees as its nuclei .... Bharatamuni emphasizes the actor; Indian traditional theatre

emphasizes the actor: the individual actor who expands. He is abundant. That is why the

impact of a traditional play. The impact of climax is rarely felt in modern drama. In Kathakali

and Yakshagana a 5ft. man expands into an 8 ft. demi-god. The source of this expansion is the

actor himself; Bharatamuni has regarded costume and accessories as a part of acting: the

actor's jerk of head with that touch of vehemence which comes with the heavy head gear: or

the actor's gesture when he wraps his shawl- expansion again. Now, if gesture, motion, voice,

speech and sound are important then sensibility is equally important. ... I feel that the actor

should be so trained as to be able to create a script from any existing piece of literature if he

fails to find an adequate readymade script. So, I don't lay much store by the playwright either.

Likewise, you will notice, I don't stress the director's role in theatre. Only the actor. (1981)

Karanth emphasized body-mind dynamics of the actor rooted in 'Indian-ness' or an unbroken

tradition of Indian perfonning arts uniquely connected to that culture's history and ethos. Such a

pedagogical conviction for actor training might have been derived from his specific background

of Indian aesthetics, traditional performing arts, modem literature, and cross-cultural performance.

The educational careers, along with his own experiences accumulated from the childhood inside

Indian theatre circle, seems to make him realize the fact that in a country such as India, with a

long tradition or pervasive traditional culture, it is very difficult to free oneself from the restraints

of the tradition, particularly while conducting a creative work. Karanth's consciously distinctive

choice was, after all, the inventiveness of a 'living' theatre, shaped by the fusion of tradition and

negotiations with a modern professional identity which privileges utility over history.

There already existed by that time a kind of struggle between a principally formalized realistic-

acting grounded in the 'western' mode and a consciously rediscovered manner of performative

presentation in the indigenous mode. Even concepts of counter-narrative realism, non-proscenium,

physicalization and musical theatre began to set in through the notion of Theatre of Roots. The

ideological position of which virtually made a mark from the early 1980s (1.2.2). The vision of

Karanth bore a close parallel to that of the age where the pressure of colonialism and indigene-

ism mandatorily questioned post-colonial theatre practitioners on retreading a certain predictable

19:2

path based on modern expectations and simultaneously reconstructing its genuine template. A.B.

Dharwadker comments on it in her book, Theatres of Independence- Drama, Theory, and Urban

Performance in India since 1947 that "The ideological emphasis on authenticity and Indianness

(among theatre workers, cultural critics, and policymakers) heightens the interest in innovation

and places a premium on the work of director who develop texts for performance on the basis of

indigenous forms, moving beyond social realism, proscenium staging, the well-made play, and

the theatre of ideas. (The assumption underlying the Sangeet Natak Akademi's "Scheme of

Assistance to Young Theatre Workers," for instance, was that directors who experimented with

indigenous forms were more creative, innovative, and important than "conventional" dramatic

authors, and so more deserving of state patronage)" (93).

It is to be noted that NSD set up its link with the necessity of indigenous qualities of theatre for

actor preparation when Karanth took over the directorship. Prior to him, the situation of taking up

a challenge of interpreting the spectrum of theatre traditions from the classical Sanskrit theatre to

the living regional performing arts was not really recognized in the institutional scenario. Much of

the support for positioning its educational value into the NSD curriculum earnestly came in his

tenure, not only from the faculty member but also the scholar and cultural bureaucracy including

Suresh Awasthi, Nemichandra Jain, and Kapila Vatsyayan. Awasthi, the Secretary of the Sangeet

Natak Akademi, opted as a member of the Advisory Committee ofNSD by virtue of his post from

1963 to 1974 and newly appointed as a member of the first Academic Council of the NSD Society

from 1977 until 1984 when he accepted the post of Chairperson of the School. As retired from the

faculty of the School, Jain joined the Academic Council in 1978. Vatsyayan got involved in the

NSD Society from 1978 to 1981 as the representative of Department of Culture, Government of

India. When serving in the Academic Council, Awasthi brought up a significant question on the

lack of an indigenous teaching method in the modern actor training:

Internationally renowned director. Eugenio Barba from Denmark came to India in 1961 and

spent several months in Kerala at Kala Mandalam, learning the techniques and methods of

actors' training. On his return, he joined Grotowski in Poland, and helped him in evolving his

system of actors' training, and the whole philosophy of the art of the actor. As is well known,

Grotowski also drew extensively from Yoga. Directors like Suzuki in Japan, Rendra in

Indonesia have evolved an indigenous system of actors' training utilizing their traditional

material and techniques. In our tradition the art of the actor has received comprehensive

discussion in the Natya Shastra which is really a manual for actors. Our actor in traditional

theatre is rich and strong in voice, speech, mime and movements. Yet these are the areas

which are weakest in training in the School. (1981)

Karanth emphasized that "We must go back to Bharata's Natyasastra for further clarifications"

to create theatrical languages and to apply them in the training system because it practically "uses

five technical terms to describe the ways in which dramatic speech can be delivered - swagata,

prakasha, akashabhashita, janantika and apavarita [(3.3.3)]" and "the mode of abhinaya [(3.2.3)]"

(Kurtkoti 1989:86-87, []mine). He felt that the post-independent Indian theatre exhibited a gross

ignorance of importance of the matter for the last three decades, and insisted that NSD must be

entirely obligated to search for the potentiality of BS in the actor training as a suggestive model of

approach.

Research, Interpretation, and definition of the Natya Shastra have been done only from the

point of view of the scholar. the dancer or the musician - not from that of theatre. That is

despite stalwarts like Adya Rangacharya - a theatre man, a playwright - who have worked in

this sphere and given it a rational interpretation. Sanskrit theatre has been- and is still being­

practiced arbitrarily: Vijaya Mehta uses it in her own way; I, in my own. That of course. does

not matter provided one is genuine in one's desire to communicate classical plays and one

does not take them up for the sake of fashion. But in that case a lot of work needs to be done

on Bharata's Natya Shastra. Who else take it up if not NSD'? Who else is more qualified or

more privileged? We may continue to grope in the dark, but that again. does not matter. There

has been talk of doing this research time to time for the past 30 years or so, but nothing has

materialized in a systematized manner. (Karanth 1981)

In order to share responsibility of the problematic situation, Karanth adopted two approaches of

194

accompanying reservation of the living traditional theatre in regions. Due to the following fact

that Natyasastra provides no physical evidence of exercises supporting concise concepts of BS

( 1.5.1 and 1.2.2), and that "their total picture and application in varying degrees can be found in

the innumerable theatrical forms in all the regions oflndia" (Panikkar 1995: 111), the School had

to draw lessons from the living tradition to actualize the application of BS in theatre education.

Karanth used to suggest even before taking up the directorship, "NSD student should work for at

least three months with any local form of his or her choice" (1995:24).

Firstly, one of the approaches was to bring well qualified artists, experts and scholars from

eminent backgrounds and institutions to the School to train students in traditional theatre forms.

Karanth helped a great deal in inviting traditional theatre artists and experts, along with their

singers and musicians, for a period of three to five weeks as the visiting faculty or resident artists

on campus, who are able to adjust themselves to the teaching business and to communicate the

essence of their forms in an organized manner. The class for practicing various acting styles and

forms, including Kathakali, Chhau, Kutiyattam, Yaksagana, Bhavai, Jatra and Nautanki, were

introduced into the syllabuses from 1978, as also the martial arts including Kalaripayattu and

Thangta were carried accordingly. The training systems of Kathakali, Chhau and Thangta have

been particularly developed to fit into today's NSD curriculum as a regular subject.

There was the similar programme of having scholars as the visiting faculty to supplement the

gap between practice and theory relating to the traditional forms. It was part of the NSD policy of

expansion in diverse directions as well to avoid making a closed-in institute. For instance, Adya

Rangacharya with the subject of 'Classical Indian Drama', Kapil a Vatsyayan with 'Traditional

Idea of the Sanskrit Play according to the Classical Indian Tradition', and Suresh Awasthi with

'Traditional Theatre, its Conventions' were periodically invited. It also organized a large number

of special courses for a short duration to hold a first-hand knowledge of various aspects of other

connected traditional fields, including 'Vedantic Thought' by Brahmachari Y. Chitanya, 'Rock­

Cut Sculpture and Mural Paintings of Ajanta' by N.R. Roy, 'Ancient Indian History and Culture'

1%

by H. Sarkar, 'Indian Music' by Prem L. Sharma, Ranga Nayaki, and Sunil Bose, 'Indian Dance'

by Sonal Mansingh, Birju Maharaj, V. Patanjali (all above quoted from the Academic Council

Reports of 1978-1981 ).

Secondly, the School set up the scheme of Traditional Theatre Workshop in 1980 by which the

students go to a regional centre of training in traditional theatre for a period of 45 days to acquire

the basic level of knowledge and skills of the form under the guidance of eminent masters. The

students exploited traditional aesthetics and techniques capable of incorporating with the modem

play and finally make the play-production utilizing these all under the supervision of a modem

director. This kind of programme had been, in reality, introduced in the period of Alkazi, but at

the time not regularized in an institutionalized manner. Karanth 's work made a definite impact on

rediscovering performative values of the several traditional fonns including Bhavai, Tamasa and

Nautanki and thereby the possibility of evolving a fresh theatrical idiom interweaving modernity

with tradition. It became later an important, regular part of the curriculum during the directorship

of Kirti Jain. She emphasizes the educational focus of Traditional Theatre Workshop, in Seat,>ul/

Theatre Quarterly:

I felt that the focus is ... to make the students sensitive first to the living conditions and the

working conditions of the traditional artists, and second how and in what way a modern artist

can relate or should relate to or has related to the traditional forms, and to see if there is any

continuity in our own experience of life with what is shown in the traditional form .... The

basic concepts, say, as a performer the kind of energy that a Chhau performer brings in- how

does a modern actor use that energy in his own performance? Can he really learn anything

from a Chhau performer at that level rather than just learning his way of standing. or his way

of fighting? ... ultimately what is important is how the director who goes there to supervise

incorporates iL what understanding of this traditional performance he gives them as modern

theatre persons. Once the actor relates to one traditional form in whatever way. I think he gets

an essence of all traditional forms. (17)

While Karanth sustained efforts of giving it direction to devise the teaching method based on

196

BS, there was no evidence to tum SS to practical application in class during his tenure. An Actor

Prepares and Building A Character, continuously referred to as the primary text during Sen's and

Alkazi 's tenure, just disappeared in the syllabuses for the years from 1978 to 1981. A graduate of

1981, S. Raghunandana witnesses, "No teacher recommended at all the acting manual of An Actor

Prepares or Building A Character or others, so I, for one, never even thought about looking into

Stanislavsky's method in my school time" (the interview, l71h Sep., 2005). ln fact, Karanth began

to emphasize the necessity of SS much later when he established the three-year theatre training

institution, Rangayana, in Mysore in 1989, after his resignation from the School in 1981 and then

another institution, Rangamandal in 1986. The teaching process of "working on the actors" was

clearly distinguished in the Rangayana from the "work on characters", where he used to say that

"Stanislavsky's works are really important in the stage of the work on actor" (Karanth 1995:25).

A regular study of SS and its practical use in the acting class were absent during his tenure.

The only components of SS for analyzing the character's motivation and the scene were partially

introduced in rehearsals through focus areas such as Super-Objective, Through Line of Action,

Unit of Action, and Moment-by-Moment Action (2.3.6). Raghunandana describes a general scene

of Acting in the same interview:

In acting classes, three teachers were there. Barry John was actually the associate professor of

Western Drama in my first year. He came as a visiting faculty for play productions with us in

the second year and took classes in acing for one or two months. All his classes related to a

kind of body exercises from head to toe and there was very little time to learn any acting

theory or terminologies. Just like more work less talk. He also introduced us to various theatre

games gratefully, quite most of which were taken from books like Keith Johnstone' IMPRO

and Clive Barker's Theatre Games. Then. we had Alaknanda Samarth who had studied in UK

and worked with John Dexter. [a leading English director of theater and opera]. She taught us

some important voice and speech techniques. Her classes were based on the improvisation[ al

work] on the spot. depending on given circumstances of the character and its psychological

states. And we had [assistant] professor. Ram Gopal Bajaj who was actually supposed to be

the official acting teacher but then for nearly two years he was out of the School [due to

another engagement in Punjab University. Patiala as the head of the department of Drama].

197

Therefore, we didn't have many classes with him. His classes generally began with the text

analysis. He emphasized in the table work, how to build a character through analyzing the text

and subtext concisely. (ibid., [] mine)

Literary image of the text must be vitalized by a means of theatrical vocabulary, consisting of

dramatic speech, music, action and visual poetry. "What I mean by the theatricality is in fact the

theatre language which is not [only] a verbal language", emphasized Karanth (Kurtkoti 1989:86).

As seeing through the performance, Andher Nagari, the first-year student production in 1978, his

directorial work noticeably "came to be regarded as an important landmark in the Indian theatre's

artistic approach and an achievement of the director in all aspects - ritualistic atmosphere, song

and music, extensive use of folk theatre traditions, unique movements of the Yakshagana by the

king's character, interesting gestures, use of yellow and saffron colours, drama, language, form,

style of presentation and the combined effect achieved through all this" (Taneja 1 05). He directed

eight school-productions with his own hands during his four-year directorship. The students had

to spend much time on the play-production and the actor training was still executed more in the

rehearsal process than in independent classes. Among the current regular member of the faculty,

Tripurari Sharma, Ashok S. Bhagat, Suresh Bhardwaj, Suresh Shetty, and Hema Singh were

trained in this period with this syllabus.

4.3.4 Philosophic Position and Practices in the Period of B.M. Shah

Two specializations in Acting and Direction were again revived in the syllabus of 1982-1983,

introduced by the incoming Director, Brij Mohan Shah, while retaining to the semester system of

examinations. He designed four semesters for the common course and two for the specializations.

The lack of attention given to detailed, specialized courses in the tenure of Karanth just catered to

mediocrity and thereby lay the overall educational standard somewhat low. It was generally felt

that the actor-training programme, as part of the integrated course, had been drowned in an over­

simplification as ignoring the demand of either professional engagement or true academic attitude

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towards the art of acting. There was little time for students to learn theories of acting, to research

exercises of acting and to try out fresh ideas accordingly, due to much attention to play production.

Moreover, "In the first year itself students had started doing massive productions and these big

plays gave some false notions to the students [that] they thought that they had become big time

actors" (Shah 1981 ).

Appointed as the visiting faculty in 1974, Shah became the professor of Acting and Direction

in 1980 and finally the Director in 1982. As a long-term member of the faculty, he had a chance to

experience educational systems ofNSD in different periods of two Directors, Alkazi and Karanth.

It probably gave him a certain idea to outline his policy of running the School. During the short­

term directorship for two years, his emphasis was not on building an image of the School for the

public but providing avenues of schooling for the student as a whole. For one thing, Shah had to

prepare a new teaching methodology in accordance with two specializations in the professional

manner; and for another, he had to place the regular class of acting on the right track with a purely

educational purpose. In case of specialization of Acting, the primary aims were, according to the

syllabus of 1982-1983, to "draw out, mould, and reinforce each individual talent by extending the

actor's apparatus of body and voice, sharpening his imagination and sensibility, and tapping his

emotional recourses; ... increasing the student's general awareness of his environment, experience

and personality; providing him with a foundation of technique and skills in acting; and placing at

his disposal major codified theories and methods of acting". One interview in Enact in I 98 I

indicates his general teaching philosophy of acting:

My curriculum for teaching 'acting' is evolving as I am going along. just as my programme

for teaching 'direction' has been gradually crystallising. I have watched and studied the work

of other teachers here in order to form some idea of the academics that go into it. The one

conclusion which I have arrived at is that in order to teach acting. you have to be a good actor

yourself. True, that you should have a method of teaching. Yet. if you become very rigidly

bound in the theories you've learnt. you may end up tying yourself and your charges into

knots. A technically well-equipped actor can be a competent actor. not necessarily a sensitive

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actor. As a teacher it's going to be my job - and my primary concern - not only give my

students all that is relevant to theatre and acting by way of theory, but also to coax the fire out

of those who have it. (Shah)

Stanislavsky believed that a systematically composed method pushes the actor on to the truth,

and the feeling of truth is the best awakener of emotion, imagination and creativity (2.2.1 ). For

him, inspiration arrives to the actor while being in the Creative State of Mind and the right use of

technique makes him possible to access the State (2.3.0). Also, the technique ofBharata including

the four schemes of Abhinaya were so practically designed as to help the actor to find stimuli of

the 'immediate-sentiment-spring' and to guide the audience to experience Rasa (3.2.3). To evoke

Rasa in audience, he repeatedly emphasized that the actor first has to intensify a backbreaking

discipline of mastering the technique on the ground of profound knowledge of the art of acting

(3.3.0). Shah realized the necessity of an actual method of techniques, enabling students of acting

to 'express' his inner state practically. His focus was to guide them in what to do in practice rather

than a certain philosophizing result. The then professor of Acting, R.G Bajaj, who became the

Director of the School later in 1995, was of the same opinion as well. He explains the teaching

philosophy of acting in an interview by the present writer:

The acting-students should be given the sound grounding or what you called as 'foundation'

in techniques. Of course, it surely takes a long time. The important thing is now what they can

learn in the duration of three years in NSD. There are two things in actor training to consider:

one is on techniques and another is on creativity. I think [that] we may be able to teach only

the fundamental of acting techniques in the school while trying to stimulate the students'

creativity. On the basis of proficiency in techniques, the students have to develop other parts

by themselves through their own personal experiences and exercises .... Different styles of

acting can not be taught all in the school times but, I believe. there is something common

between them, which is the fundamental techniques, whether these are [on) the inner or the

outer [aspect of acting]. that would be regarded as nature of acting. I have been trying to help

them in realizing this 'nature· that is my major intention as a teacher. (29'h Dec., 2005)

It is to be noted that Shah systematically formalized the separate cuniculum for Acting, term

:zuo

by term. There had been no provision in the syllabus on this specialization till 1982, even though

its ideological position was marked out especially during the period of Alkazi. Shah's syllabus of

Acting provided a momentum for establishing the educational system in the objective, methodical

way. An Actor Prepares, Building A Character and Creating A Role were reintroduced in classes,

which were absent in Karanth's tenure, and the phase-in of SS intended to build up the ground of

actor preparation. Knowledge of the principle in Natyasastra and Abhinayadarpana were referred

to as a secondary source, meanwhile traditional theatre artists were invited to suggest a practical

model of the application in exercise.

The students were in the position to 'work on self' in the first and second semesters, consisting

of the introductory class on "the idea of compulsion of the self-extension and identification as a

part of actor's ego and creative expansion" (all below quoted from the syllabuses of 1982-1984).

The improvisational exercise was, on the purpose of developing their imagination and spontaneity,

initially based upon observation on and from his personal experiences in life. It expanded into the

Etude from the end of the second semester, dealt with a dramatic situation extracted from the play

(2.3.3). Particularly, the psychological aspect of"exercise for energy tension-point, concentration,

flow of imagination and arresting of the mind" were examined, along with "the project work on

Stanislavsky's Method acting like Motivation, If, Emotion Memory, etc", on the basis of An Actor

Prepares. A series of lectures on "brief of RASA theory and nature of art and acting requirement

of the Actor (Physical-Mental)" was conducted for the first two semesters. Ahhinayadarpana, a

shorter version of Natyasastra ( 1.6.1 ), was apparent in the syllabus as the reference for exploring

the anatomical feasibility as an agent of the expression of human experience.

From the third semester, students began to 'work on character' by stages. A survey of ordinary

human characters and localities in life, relating to age, sex, class and occupation, explored their

distinctive "gestures, postures, gaits, voice tones etc, leading to demonstration and improvisations

(solo and group)". Secondly, "character analysis from selected place, preferably from the plays

[of which given circumstances are nearer to the students' personal lives was] being studied in the

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class" ([ ] mine). The students then took the "graph work of a scene and character from a selected

play from the point of view of development, crises tension, resolution, and transformations", and

finally went for "preparing a character from a selected play and performing it as a solo exercise".

They proceeded by beginning with the simplest objective they feel familiar with, and gradually

moved forward the independent character of the drama. Noticeably, this step-by-step approach to

characterization bears an intimate parallel to one of Stanislavsky's methods (2.2.2). The relevant

"study projects and seminars on Stanislavsky, Brecht and Bharata - concepts and methods" were

introduced as part of"the [theoretical] project on Acting history and major actors".

While realistic acting was the first and most consideration in the training programme of the

first three semesters, the fourth semester gave a thought to the non-realistic. Grotowski's Towards

a Poor Theatre was recommended as a reference. The students were asked to "observe [a] wide

range of animal (sources may be the zoo and the film series of wild life)" and to interpret "idioms

that describe a man through animals similarities as for example- 'He is a lion of a men"'. It was

followed by "taking of the character from any play and applying the mode so evolved from the

above exercise process". The improvisational exercise was run by visiting artists of the traditional

theatre, mostly from Kathakali and Chhau. The "language of face" was demonstrated during re­

searching of "varying expressions and control of facial muscles - Bhava Abhinaya", of which

necessity and value in actor training are discussed in the third chapter of this study (3.3.4 ). To be

aware of "the impact of specific light, sound, space, and situation and its variation to play", the

exercise of a regular transformation or "Forward point of a character" was done in ~:,>roup. "Short

plays or scenes from selected plays covering the historical development from classic to modem

theatre" must be staged by all students of acting at the end of the semester so as to leam how to

"establish the movement motive, unit transitions and use of compositions and distances (place)

and the tone".

Once the students of acting explore the process of intrapersonal communication, they need to

concem themselves with co-actors who share the scene on stage (2.3.4). The art of acting is highly

202

imaginative, communicative and responsive to the audience so that they must understand a means

of perception of the audience (3.3.2). The fifth semester focused on interpersonal communication,

such examples as "tracing back of one's thought-process and analysis of the associations" and

"isolating and using each unit of human body for communication and acquiring command over it

(the patterns to be put to music allowing the isolator's patterns to burst in dance and get back to the

natural expression and repeating the same again and again)". The students were induced to make

"Acting Project" or "Scene Work" by "interpreting the known character of the play or legend or

history (sole or in pairs)" and to "create individual ensemble from Indian narrative conventions".

There were "lectures and seminars on various acting theories of Stanislavsky, Brecht, Grotowski,

Bharata, Diderot and the interaction of such schools [of Acting] with that of contemporary theatre

trends".

In the fifth and sixth semesters, a specific "study of traditional acting styles as source materials"

appeared in the syllabus, "possibly from: Yatra, Ras Leela, Ram Leela, Tamasha, Bhand, Naqualan,

Khyal, Terukoottu, etc; [and) also Western comics slapsticks including Comedia Dell'arte". The

improvisational work both as individual and in group was based on "a multi-dimensional character

like Rangela from a traditional drama". The advanced level of acting on "[awareness of] sensory

transference and perceptions" was taught from the standpoint of psycho-physical or psychosomatic

process of the emotional expression in the class of Improvisation. Both Stanislavsky and Bharata

developed psycho-physical systems through their own understanding of the intrinsic relationship

between the motor-sensory nerve and the mutuality of sense, intellect, emotion and body. There is,

however, no evidence in the syllabus to apply the ultimate method of SS, the Method of Physical

Actions that provides a direct and spontaneous means of developing psychophysical connection

with the character (2.2.3). Neither was the application of basic sequential exercises of BS, Karana

and Angahara, introduced at all, by which the actor's body is able to attain a transformative state of

consciousness or the 'repositioned' body (3.3.1 ). In the semesters, the interrelationship with other

fields of art got involved so as to produce the student with essential knowledge of art outside his

own field. The "Use of classics and allied art form as source material for interpreting them through

acting as sole and group ensemble (like poetry, painting, sculpture, etc.)" was encouraged.

NSD in Shah's tenure attempted to provide a 'phase-in' leaning process with a comprehensively

revived course of acting specialization. The primary concern was to set up the ground of acting by

the help of the use of techniques, in the independent class, covering knowledge of acting theory,

psycho-physical process of the expression, and analytical skill for interpreting the text. It is to be

noted that the approach from the simplest objective in the student's personal life to a more

complicated one in the character's life during work on character, and also that from the realistic to

the non-realistic in characterization became popular as the teaching method in this period ofNSD.

Shah did not much depend on making play-production, unlike Alkazi and Karanth, because it was

believed to be impossible to have a requisite training if the student of acting is frequently engaged

in rehearsal. There were just five school-productions staged in the year of 1982-1983, i.e. one for

the second-year student and four for the third-year; and also seven productions in the year of 1983-

1984, three for the second-year and four for the third-year. The first-year student's participation in

the production was never recommended for themselves. For reference, in Karanth's times, students

were mostly in productions or preparing for them so that twelve productions were performed to the

public in one year of 1980-1981, in which the all three grades of students together took part.

4.3.5 Philosophic Position and Practices in the Period of Kirti Jain

A 1972 graduate of NSD, Kirti Jain completed diploma under the directorship of Alkazi and

succeeded to the associate professor of Modern Indian Drama in Karanth 's tenure. This post had

for the larger part been occupied by her father, Nemichandra Jain. When she accepted the School

directorship in September 1988, in those days, the pedagogical condition such as class attendance

remained slack and its regularity was almost broken. Even though the structure of syllabus had

been developed through an inordinately long period of trial and error, it was realized that the

academic process still did not produce the best of results. A review committee or the so-called

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Girish Kamad Committee, constituted to make recommendation in academic and administration

functioning ofNSD, was set up. Proposed by the NSD Society in its meeting held on Mar., 1989,

the Committee dealt with the matters regarding admission process, duration and responsibility of

the Director, status of the diploma, assessment for the student, special course in language for non­

Hindi speaking students, refresher course for the faculty, and overall educational systems of the

curriculum.

The Committee recommended that a group of eighty candidates should be selected in an initial

stage of the entrance-examination offered in regions and twenty students among them finally get

admission through a seven-day intensive workshop in NSD. Fifteen or sixteen candidates for

Acting and four or five for Theatre Techniques & Design were specified by the student's showing

proof of proficiency in the concerned area and the faculty's approval. In the commonly integrated

course for the first year, the emphasis was "on teaching-learning of the ultimate constituents and

their corporal role in a theatre event, designed to give the student total field awareness and choose

for himself the area of specialization according to his/her aptitude" (the syllabus of 1990-1991 ).

Two distinctive curriculums for the specializations were introduced only to be effective from the

second year.

Each semester consisted of twenty weeks in duration: sixteen weeks were devoted to teaching;

two weeks for preparation and special revision for slow-achiever; and another two weeks for final

examination of the semester. The School newly announced all assessments and evaluations in the

cumulative grade point average (CGPA) on the scales, i.e. A=4 (Very Good), B=3 (Good), C=2

(Satisfactory), D=l (Unsatisfactory), E=O (Very Poor). In the end of second and fourth semesters,

the student had to earn the CGPA of 2.5 or more, otherwise he was declared failed for promotion.

The final result carried the student's CGPA during all the six semesters and only candidates who

successfully completed it were strictly entitled to receive the Diploma in Dramatics.

The Director had been hitherto appointed for two years as seen in the case of Shah ( 1982-1984),

Mohan Maharishi (1984-1986), and Ratan Thyam (1987-1988). The Committee recommended a

longer term as the first condition of a successful directorial tenure: "A term of five years like that

of the vice-Chancellor in a Central University is the ideal term" because "a very short term [of

two years] has made the Director's position very vulnerable to all lGnds of manipulation and

pressures", and "might also encourage the director to take ad-hoc and make-do decisions" ( 4, the

Report of the Review Committee). Responsibilities of the Director were definitely clarified in the

Committee, focusing on the 'academic' activity of coordinating a high standard of contents and

performance with regard to syllabus, teaching load, time table, supervision, setting and conduct of

examinations, progress reports, assessment, and discipline. In order to support him in execution of

the responsibility in academics, the Director was urged to nominate two of his colleagues to serve

as the student's Counsellor and Dean. The Committee stressed that the academic supervision has

to be separately dealt with its administrative operation: "An appointment of a Senior Officer from

the Indian Administrative Service to serve as an Administrative Officer, for a fixed tenn of two

years should be made-to plan, monitor and implement in this report and in the action-plan which

the Chairperson of the Society would prepare based on the recommendation of this report" (ibid.).

There was a long-time impression that the School is essentially Delhi-oriented and do not fully

respond to one of the major problems, i.e. the language-medium for teaching and performance.

Sombhu Mitra resigned from the Academic Council of the NSD Society over this issue in 1970.

Jain admitted that "Its pedagogy privileges Hindi -or English- speaking students, even though it

cannot afford to be rooted to the cultural ethos of one language or region" (2004:306). In a multi­

lingual society or a culturally diverse nation like India, the School had its share of disadvantage,

as the national institution, primarily apparent in its actor training, where language is obviously a

valid issue: "How can a teacher and actor whose mother tongue is Tamil or Kannada train just in

Hindi?- Force the actor to speak Hindi badly? - Or give him a small part? - Or develop a bad

sense of speech rhythm? A good actor can communicate best in his own language" (Awasthi

1981 ). The Committee proposed to organize an intensive course in Hindi for two to four months

in the first year for non-Hindi speaking students, and also to encourage them to make a viable cast

206

for play production with their own languages. The student of acting was also, in principle, free to

perform the scene in their mother-tongue at the class and for its examination. Noticeably, in Jain's

times, the School officially explored and enlarged upon such an approach of de-centralization of

the language.

Although the syllabus may come up to the best of educational intention and practical purpose,

that is, after all, the teacher whose efforts tum it into reality through encouraging the student's

participation in what is being taught and learned. Another issue the Committee brought out rather

strongly was the lack of the existing plan to train teachers of young generation and to re-educate

the existing faculty. The composition of syllabus often resorted to the self-interest of the faculty.

The teacher determined the subject rather than the subject determined the teacher. The class used

to run on the basis of the teacher's individual achievements and experiences. The School therein

had to suffer for all the years from an ad-hoc measure in its teaching methodology and practices.

In the final year of her directorship, Jain indicates the problem in the pedagogical point of view in

an interview with Seaf::,>ull Theatre Quarter/)'·:

When I took over, there were the gaps which I could see very clearly. I realized that unless a

next line of teachers were created, unless there is a body of people who share a similar

methodology, how would this training process take place? It can't be so individual-centric.

where everything collapses when the Director goes away. How do we go about doing that?

We needed a teachers' training programme, we needed to evolve methodology in all areas of

theatre training and find a method which would intensify the training process and really bring

the focus back to the classroom rather than production because it is only in the classroom that

more risks can be taken, it is only in the classroom that opportunities can be given and more

explorations happen. (14)

There was no specialized organization of advanced training for theatre teachers, and also there

was nowhere for faculty members to keep abreast of fresh means and methods. Jain felt that NSD

should be the initial institution to take up this issue as the matter of importance with its national

identity. Young graduates ofNSD were given opportunity to depute themselves into the faculty on

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a priority basis in spite of an opposition from senior members of the faculty who insisted that "the

visiting faculty should be the top people and there should be no compromise" (Prasanna 34). That

was to enhance the utility of senior faculty-members and also to give confidence to younger ones,

while engaged all together in making the on-going discourse on theatre education. Some of the

faculty articulated the need of a certain programme for teachers so as to acquire how and what of

teaching has become necessary at times. The Committee recommended to invite eminent theatre

teachers from Britain, USA, Australia, Germany and Russia for the relevant workshop with the

faculty as well as to dispatch them to short refresher courses in India and abroad for enriching the

exposure to various teaching methods and materials.

Concerning the purport of actor preparation reflecting in the syllabus of NSD, the Committee

suggested:

The National School of Drama is meant to teach actors and directors. The syllabus and

curriculum should reflect this as the point. It should teach its students techniques that promote

the spontaneity of the moment, help them develop character-portrayals and arouse authentic

emotion and expressive physical and vocal behaviour. A student thus should be exposed to

technical skills needed to play folk and classical Indian theatre. The Acting department with

its various-inputs-such as theories of acting and their applications, improvisations, scene

work, movement and speech therefore becomes the pivotal department. Technical subjects

such as Make-up/ Sc. Design/ Architecture/ Lighting/ Carpentry/ Costume-design, as well as

the study of Western dramatic literature should dove-tall into the various stages of the actor's

development ~as an intrinsic part of his growth. Students of direction in their specialization

of two years will of course concentrate more on the technical aspects of theatre and dramatic

literature. (6, italic mine)

One of the central aims of NSD has been the preparation of students to practice the art of acting.

According to the syllabus of 1992-1993, "While all areas of study are assessed separately and an

acceptable standard of work demanded in each, the most important intention of the course is the

development of the essentially intangible concept of the creative imagination and its expression

within the cooperative frame work of a group". It seemed to be fully aware that the student of

20(-1

acting needs a technical means and methodological approach for 'conscious' entry into the

subconscious (2.2.1). The use of Indian theatre traditions was emphasized for not only attaining

particular skills of body and voice, but also exploring the actor's inner process of developing the

artistic imagination and creativeness (3.3.5). Based on this teaching philosophy, Jain significantly

took into consideration a wide variety of educational inputs required in the 'changing' theatre

scenario and attempted to make the institutional device into a systematic operation.

I feel it is important because things are getting more and more professionalized. People no

longer have the time to learn through experience only ... Earlier, training was also training,

but it was over a long period of time by watching, participating, doing. But where is the time

today going through that? I also think there is a limitation in that method. Once again you

only get to know one kind of theatre, one way of working, which was the problem in the

earlier training mode at NSD. But in today's world there is so much diversity and so many

things happening at the same time, I think people need to be exposed to a larger number of

approaches and methods and styles and way of working. I think it's only in the institutional

mode that that can happen in a systematic manner, apart from giving him the basic skills and

competence to handle the task of acing or design. Otherwise it will take 30-40 years for a

person to train with three different people and learn their way of working .... What we want

to achieve in three years from the basic training of theatre, basic awareness of theatre and the

basic learning of the education system is to equip them to deal with any of these kinds of

theatre. ( 1995: 19)

Jain probably disagreed with Alkazi who believed that it is possible to achieve a 'unique' yet

'universal' training system, capable of acquiring a complete methodology that is applicable to any

styles of acting (4.3.2). With an emphasis on the diversity of theatre, her teaching philosophy of

acting pursued a different objective that there must be a rigorous grounding in technique, yet also

an exposure to the wide range of approaches and styles of acting prevalent in India, beyond any

one particular method. She believed that today's student of acting is required to various theatrical

modes, of which expressional manners tend to be highly individualistic, and thereby he needs to

adopt not only to other media but also to a large variety of acting styles inside the genre of theatre

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itself. Her 'eclectic' aesthetics was first of all relating to the major question of what is so specific

about the training programme, characterized as 'modern' and 'Indian' in a sense. As long as the

School provides the professional education based on multiple notions of tradition and modernism

to the students who belong to multiple socio-cultural backgrounds of India, it was impracticable,

to Jain, to evolve one specific method of acting that can be tenned 'modern Indian'. Jain explains

in an interview with the present writer:

I think the drama school here is pursuing another function that no drama school in the west

does. And that has been initiated from setting up a certain conception of modern performance

in our circumstances. We are still debating about what is the nature of our modernism into

which our actors will take place, what is the so-called 'modern' actor. That has never been so

problematic in the West. ... Many people, even in our own generations, have different answers

to that. Bansi [Kaul] may say that you do need unique supportiveness as a foundation [for the

actor training]. Anu[radha Kapur] may have a different answer. ... There is a variety of

thinking of the popular and classical. and modernism so would be in a country like India,

which has several types of students. If I need to talk about only the classical acting, then I can

talk on that of Kutiyattam, but that is not the case. I mean, Kutiyattam is, by and large, the

classical in India and so should we say the ground of modern acting is Stanislavski method? I

could not see that. Now in NSD. whether its methodology came from Stanislavski [system] or

Indian realism or Parsi theatre or all mixed of them, I can not say that [substance] exactly with

one particular term, but some traditions have carried on. (I I th April, 2005)

She also views this issue from another angle, in Seagull Theatre Quarter(y.

STQ: Does NSD privilege a particular kind of theatre over others? You have mentioned the

pressure to do the realistic kind of acting which is probably related to the fact that most media

work is done in the more realistic form of acing. Probably they want to go into television later.

KJ: It might be partly that and partly it has to do with the fact that a methodical training

process in acting has not been evolved in any other method: not really the Stanislavski method

but the take off from the Stanislavski mode. I think it is to do with the fact that as modern

actors they do not feel equipped to deal with modern plays till they have the training to deal

with realistic plays. I think it is to do partly with this notion and partly what they have done

beforehand, what they have perceived as theatre. Also there is no other methodology evolved

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so far that deals with a modem theatre actor. What we do is also a kind of basic variation on

the method acting. The nature of exercises changes in our culture and the approach to work

also changes. But the basic areas of training for the actor remain same. The essential thing is

the wide variety of inputs. (1995: 18)

Jain's philosophical base and its practices for actor preparation reflected credit on the syllabus

of 1994-1995, in effect. The first semester was designed to focus on awareness of 'self' and its

relation to the work in acting. Through the class of Mime & Movement and of Yoga, "the students

begin to know their body, their voice and their imagination [and] learn to enter space, loosen their

limbs [as well as] become aware of their body and concentrate to rhythm". In Voice and Speech,

they acquired basic knowledge and skills on "mechanism and anatomy of the vocal instrument,

breathing, pitch and volume, elimination of speech defects". Through the class of Improvisation

& Interpretation, the students learned how "to 'see', 'hear', and 'believe'; to react, observe and

concentrate", of which "focus is on the study of self, self and others, and self and society". This

prerequisite condition to acting was, in reality, stressed by the fundamental t,JTammars of SS such

as "circle of concentration, attention, if, imagination, trust and belief", but it was not specifically

introduced as the grammar of SS. Natyasastra was referred to as the textual source in Mime &

Movement on practical purpose of exploring "postures and movements as agents of expression of

human experience and activity both mental and physical relative stance and projection which are

the essential features of traditional movement in practice". In the second semester "while students

continue to work on basic performance skills, classes will move towards basic text and speech

analysis, scene work and rehearsals of modem realistic texts".

After the training process in the first year was somewhat based on realistic texts, second-year

students expanded their capacity to the non-realistic. For the third semester, "Acting for Classical

Indian drama will include study of the religious roots of the form, stylized gestures, movement,

dance and the 'purvarang'", and also "Acting for classical Greek drama will include classes on

animal and mask work, chorus, story telling, verse speaking". The faculty attempted to improve

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the student's performative sensibility through knowledge of BS Techniques on Abhinaya (3.2.3

and 3.3.2), "based as it is on physiological observation and detailed descriptive representation of

persons, objects, and scenic properties". The scene work was periodically made, along with the

theoretical study of the scene from selected plays, especially on Sanskrit or Greek or Parsi theatre.

It aimed at discovering visible and invisible meaning of intention, establishing the unit-division in

terms of action, interpreting the motivation from one unit to the next, moulding relationship with

other characters in various situations of the scene, and finally understanding the knowledge and

technique of characterization. In the fourth semester, "Acting for Shakespearean text will include

training for performance on the open stage, training to speak verse and prose", and also "Acting

for farce will include clowning routine, mask work, and if possible work on Commedia Del'arte".

It was recommended to conduct the Scene Work class with the Shakespearean text or farce and to

disclose its result to the public. (all above quoted from the syllabus of 1994-1995).

All through the second year, the Improvisation & Interpretation class was given much weight

in Acting, where students began to work on the character. After an initial instruction during the

first year to improvise on the basis of their own personae, it was then the very moment that they

need to push themselves towards more complicated characters beyond their personalities. Two

theoretical classes of Role Analysis and Acting Theory were apparent from this year. One of SS

Techniques, the motivational analysis (2.3.6) was intensively applied in the Role Analysis class to

teach how to build up a conceptual foundation of characterization. In the class of Acting Theory,

the students learned Stanislavsky's early method of exploring academically inner aspect of acting

and its extemalization in narrative as one of the modern theories of acting.

Another important case-study was regarding Anamika Haksar's involvement in NSD during

the period of Jain's directorship, by which the School got another window into SS. After the basic

training under Karanth in the School, she accomplished her advanced training in Direction at the

Russian Academy of Theatre in Russia. Jain comments, "Her process gives us an insight into the

concept of Stanislavskian acting as it has developed in the [erstwhile] Soviet Union ... Her work

~12

emphasizes the study and extension of the inner self of the actor in a manner that no other director

does [in those days]" (2002: 159). However, her teaching in NSD focused on the area of directing

rather than acting. Haksar introduced the class of Production Process for the second-year student

in the academic year of 1989-1990 and 1993-1994, which "aims at enlightening the students in

matters of techniques and sensibilities required for play directing". She has been rarely invited for

the regular class of acting till now.

The curriculum for the third year was planned to give the advanced training through a series of

short-term workshops led by eminent theatre practitioners, such as Shreeram Lagoo, Naseeruddin

Shah, Satyadev Dubey, R.P. Prasanna Kumar, Sue Weston (the initiator of Relaxing The Mind

activities and currently the Principal of Isleworth School of T'ai-Chi Ch'uan in UK), Phillip B.

Zarilli (the acting trainer of a psycho-physical process through the use of Asian martial arts and

currently the professor of the University of Exeter in U.K), and Cicely Berry (the then Voice

Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company), whose voice technique are invaluable to actors and

directors who are perfonning classical plays in today's theatre, to name a few. In terms of NSD

policy, the final-year students depended more on the visiting faculty rather than the regular, from

whom they were drawing the best of talents to conduct workshops and classes during four to six

weeks: "Along with a core of experienced in-house faculty, these invited teachers will allow for a

programme that is orchestrated from year to year to meet the needs of the students in each class."

While fifteen theatre personalities were invited as the visiting faculty in the year of 1989-1990

and the fourteen in 1990-1991, the number has increased !,'Teatly to the fifty-six in 1993-1994 and

the sixty-four in 1995-1996. "The workshops might include advanced work with mask and gag

routines, puppetry as well as classes on realistic acting including detail work with props". The

class of Acting Theory had a particular focus on indigenous styles of acting in Indian and westem

theatre traditions and then pursued a comparative study of Indian theatre tradition and, mostly, the

Epic theatre. The class of Voice and Speech was specified with "interpretation of passages from

traditional theatre fonns" and "interpretation in terms of the theatrical, the realistic and the Epic

approach". A serial workshop for acting in film and on connection between theatre and media run

for the third-year students. Most of all, they had to devote his efforts and time to participate in the

school production. Three or four productions were generally staged in the final year as a regular

curriculum (all above quoted from the syllabus of 1994-1995 ).

In the NSD history, the teaching philosophy of acting and its practical methods have changed

with the times. There were frequent re-considerations of the syllabus. The educational situation

on specialization of Acting has ideally evolved in consistency, but the real energy of executing its

relative training programmes somewhat remained unconnected period by period. It is primarily

because the inputs and degree of modification into the syllabuses depended on the persons who

were coming as the Director. Even though the syllabus-structure has been regularly revised by the

Academic Council of the NSD Society, it was the Directors with their ideological interests who

have become the most vocal proponents of the methodology change. While concentrating various

academic and pedagogical practices in the hands of the Directors has some advantage, it may also

be read as absence of a lineal direction, coherent policy, and a methodological training process. It

is to be noted that Jain's directorial achievement can be recognized in her efforts to manage this

weak point by a greater demand on an objective, systematic academic curriculum and its practical

function. Today's current pedagogical operation of NSD is modelled on that in fonnulation and

used in the period of Jain's directorship, which will be discussed in sequence at the succeeding

chapter of this study.

214

4.4.1 Reference

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1975

______ . "Alkazi Speaks" [interview] in Enact, no. 169-171 (Jan-Mar), 1981

Arora, Keval. "Ebrahim Alkazi" in Theatre India, no. 7, May, 2003

Awasthi, Suresh. Peiformance Tradition in India, New Delhi: National Book Trust, 2001

______ . "Suresh Awasthi" [interview] in Enact, no. 172-174 (Apr-Jun), 1981

Bajaj, R.G. "Ram Gopal Bajaj" in Enact, no. 172-174 (Apr-Jun), 1981

Bandyopadhyay, Samik. "Bengali Theatre" in Seagull Theatre Quarterly, issue 12, Dec. 1996

Baradi, Hasmukh. History of Gujarati Theatre, Vinod Meghani (tr.), New Delhi: National Book

Trust, 2001

Boleslavsky, Richard. Acting- The First Six Lessons, New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1933

Brown, John Russell. "Voice for Reform in South Asian Theatre" in New Theatre Quarterly, vol.

XVII, no. 65, Feb. 2001

Brook, Peter. The Empty Space, New York: Atheneam, 1968

Clurman, Harold. The Fervent Years, New York: Hill and Wang Inc., 1945

Dharwadker, A.B. Theatres of Independence -Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance in India

since 1947, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005

Dalmia, Vasudha. Poetics, Plays, and Performance, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006

Gokhale, Shanta. Playwright at the Centre, - Marathi Drama from 1843 to the Present, Calcutta:

Seagull Books, 2000

Jain, Kirti. "In Search of a Narrative: Women Theatre Directors of the Northern Belt", in Muffled

Voices- Women in Modern Indian Theatre, New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications, 2002

____ . "National School of Drama (NSD)" in The Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre,

Ananda Lal (ed.), New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004

____ . "My Most Memorable Moments in Theatre- Babu, Bhabhi" in Theatre India, no. 7,

2003

____ . "Perspectives on the National School of Drama" [interview] 111 Seagull 1heatre

Quarterly, issue 6, Aug. 1995

Kapur, Anuradha. "Impersonation, Narration, Desire and the Parsi Theatre" in Indians Literary

Histories: Essays on the Nineteen Century, Stuart Blackburn and Vasudha

Dalmia (ed.), New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2004

_______ ."On Acting" in Seagull Theatre Quarterly, issue 12, Dec. 1996

Karanth, B.V. "B. V. Karanth" [interview] in Enact, no. 172-174 (Apr-Jun), 1981

215

_____ . "Perspectives on the National School of Drama" [interview] in Seagull Theatre

Quarterly, issue 6, Aug. 1995

Kaushal, J.N. "I remember drama" [interview] in Enact, no. 169-171(Jan-Mar), 1981

Kurtkoti, Kirtinath. "B. V. Karanth" [interview] in Contemporary Indian Theatre, Paul Jacob ( ed. ),

New Delhi: Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1989

Maharishi, Mohan. "Actor Today" in Theatre India, no.12, 2005

Panikkar, K.N. "Federation in Culture" in Rasa: The Indian Performing Arts in the Last Twenty­

Five Years, vol. II, Ananda La! (ed.), Calcutta: Anamika Kala Sangam Research

and Publications, 1995

Prasanna, R.P. "Perspectives on the National School of Drama" [interview] in SeaJ::,>ull Theatre

Quarterly, issue 6, Aug. 1995

Raha, Kironmoy. "Satu Sen" in The O~ford Companion to Indian Theatre, Ananda La! (ed.), New

Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004

Raina, M.K. "M.K. Raina" [interview] in Enact, no. 172-174 (Apr-Jun), 1981

Shah, B.M. "B.M. Shah" [interview] in Enact, no. 169-171 (Jan-Mar), 1981

Singh, Manohar. "The NSD Repertory Company" in Enact, no. 172-174 (Apr-.Jun), 198 I

Sondhi, Reeta. "Impressions: National School of Drama" in Enact, no. 172-174 (Apr-.Jun), 1981

Taneja, .Jaidev. "Karanth and His Total Theatre" in Theatre India, no.6, 2002

"Drama Seminar 1956 ~Recommendations", Sangeet Natak Akademi Bulletin, no.6 (May, 1957)

"Report of the Review Committee", the confidential document ofNSD (1989)

"Report of the High-Powered Committee: Appointed to Review the Performance of the National

Akademis and the National School of Drama", the confidential document of Department

of Culture, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India (July, 1990)

The syllabuses for the years from 1959 to 2005, the academic documentation of NSD

The Annual Report of Sangeet Natak Akademi from I 956 to 1960, from 1971 to 1972, the printed

documentation of the Sangeet Natak Akademi

The Academic Council Reports for the years from 1978 to 1981, the documentation of NSD

"The Memorandum of Association". the official document ofNSD (1959)

"The First Drama Seminar", the printed documentation of the Sangeet Natak Akademi (1956)

"The International Seminar- Theatre in the World Today: Individual and Collective", the printed

documentation of the Sangeet Natak Akademi (2003)

2I6

The interview with K.M. Sontakke, the interview at the traditional theatre workshop for second­

year students ofNSD, Mumbai in 9th Jan, 2003

The interview with Imtiaz Ahmed at the NSD Convocation ceremony for 2002-2004 graduation,

the Kamani Auditorium, New Delhi in 3'd Jan., 2005

The interview with Kirti Jain at NSD in 11th Apr., 2005

The interview with Suresh Shetty at NSD in 12th Aug., 2005

The interview with S. Raghunandana at NSD in 17th Sep., 2005

The interview with H.V. Sharma at NSD in 12th Dec., 2005

The interview with R.G. Bajaj at NSD in 29th Dec., 2005

217